Phases of the Moon Activity: Homemade Oreo Cookie Recipe (Yum!!)

We had a lot of fun with this part of our astronomy unit.We talked about the phases of the moon. We started off with a lamp and held an egg in our hand. Then we moved the egg slowly around, watching how the shadow on the egg changed as the egg moved relative to the earth/our eyes.  We all took turns slowly watching the shadows on the egg change (photo blend below).  Then we pulled out some readings and read about the different names of these shadows... half moon, crescent moon, gibbous moon, etc.

We filled out a worksheet (photo above) and went on to the Phases of the Moon lapbook pages below. I didn't like this lapbook quite as much as the others because it didn't include the gibbous phase (look at the egg collage: middle picture/top row) when there's a lot of light and only a sliver of shadow. I printed out the worksheet from the teacherfile box (all the Evan Moor books available as printables such as history pockets, take it to your seat science centers and more).  I got my subscription for 30% off from homeschool buyers coop. You can also make your own Homeschool IDs there.

Next we went on to showing the light and shadows on oreo cookies. I've seen this activity done with "real" oreos (sorry can't remember when or where), but I've had this homemade oreo recipe to try out for two years.  This is the first time we actually used it. Oh my goodness, those cookies were awesome!! I'll share the recipe below.  First, here are oreo moon phases:

First we followed the sheet exactly, making sure the light and shadows were aligned properly.  Then we started with the full moon at the top and I had the kids try to figure out what came next (picture below). They had to concentrate pretty hard to do this.

Homemade Oreos:
And now the recipe:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (it called for "Dutch process cocoa, I used Hershey's unsweetened cocoa)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 1/4)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons room-temperature unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks)
1 large egg

Place very small spoonfuls of batter on the greased cookie pan.  Be sure not to make the blobs too large because they flatten and spread out a lot. Since we made ours into proper looking oreos (cream in the middle) after this activity, the cookies wound up huge (larger then I wanted the kids to be eating in one sitting).

Bake for 9 minutes at 375.

Frosting:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

The print out has been in my recipe box forever, but there is a tribute: "Adapted from Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman." Again, sorry I don't have an original link.

Astronomy Unit: The Moon (Day 2)

On this day we read about the Moon and did the lapbook components to add to our science notebook. What's perfect about these lapbooks for us right now is the writing is not overwhelming and  reinforces the main points we've gone over.  We used the Moon -- Speedy Lapbook by Homeschool Bits (which was on sale for 25cents).

Moon Craters: Our activity that day was to talk about why the surface of the moon has so many craters.

We made a play dough like surface and covered it with aluminum foil. Then we got some marbles and fired our "meteors" at the "surface of the moon."

We looked at some actual photos of the craters on the moon and read a bit more about it too.  The kids liked this activity!

Astronomy Unit: The Moon (Day 1)

 The moon is very far away (225,622 miles to 252,088 miles depending on its position in its elliptical orbit around the Earth). NASA had to be very careful about the calculations they made to send someone to the moon especially since the moon is a moving target.  In this activity, the kids are trying to hit the moon (a nut suspended on a string) that is swinging back and forth. They found it very difficult to hit the moving target!

We set up a bright lamp (our sun) and DD is moving the ping-pong ball around the earth (orange).  Meanwhile LD is slowly moving the earth/orange around the sun/lamp.

 Objects appear larger, the closer they are to you:

In this activity we showed that our hand can block out the entire wall on the other side of the room from top to bottom even though our hand is much smaller than the wall itself. This is what the moon does when it blocks out the sun in an eclipse.  The moon is smaller, but closer to Earth.

Now the kids are blocking out the orange with the smaller ping-pong ball.

The umbra and penumbra: We set an orange under our bright light and looked at the shadow.  There was a darker shadow (umbra) and a lighter shadow (penumbra).  Then we took turns showing where the penumbra starts (the pencil is not actually touching the orange, but in the picture it looks like it is). Then below we took notes for our science notebook (below is mine)...

We drew pictures of the sun and showed how there was a small area where light got through with a bit of light (penumbra) and only a small portion where the sunlight couldn't pass at all (umbra).

Astronomy Unit: Inner and Outer Planets, The Asteroid Belt

We seem to talk about the planets about once a year, don't we?  This time we did a little activity that showed the four inner, rocky planets, the asteroid belt and the four outer planets, the gas giants.

In this picture you can see that the asteroid belt has two layers as well!

We did the inner and out planets speedy lapbook by homeschool bits (25cents) -- and even ED was into the cutting/pasting!

We also did the asteroid speedy lapbook. It was the perfect amount of writing for my two -- and it reinforced some of the basic information we had covered. We added those pages into our science notebook.

We also did a couple activities. One was a TOTAL flop (showing the elliptical orbits and how sometimes Neptune is the farthest planet)... except that I couldn't get it to work 5 of the 6 times we did it!  The activity above shows how an object in motion (the suspended nut) moved in the same direction despite being rotated on the lazy susan.

Astronomy Unit: Refraction, Vacuum, Saturn's Rings

The kids have been begging for some hands-on science experiments. I have a bigger unit planned, but since December and January will be a bit broken up as far as our schooling goes, I decided to delve into a short unit with lots of experiments based on one of Janice VanCleave's books (202 Oozing, Bubbling, Dripping, Bouncing, Experiments) and lots of notebook/lapbook pages from Homeschool Bits. Here's some of what we've been up to so far:

1. Bent Light - Refraction
We placed a penny in two cups and poured water in one cup.  Then we put a pencil on the ground when we couldn't see the penny any more.  For all three of us we could see the penny that was in water longer than the one with air.  We talked about "refraction" and LD made a great connection to Brian in Hatchet who tried and tried to spear a fish unsuccessfully. Finally, he realized the water made the fish appear in a different spot and he was able to spear them.

We measured the distance between the pencils for the three of us.  For me it was 6 1/4 inches, for LD it was 5 1/4 inches and for DD it was 4 1/4 inches. We talked about why that was the case (the differences in our heights and the angle of our eyes to the penny).

The kids all wrote down a few key words for each science experiment to put in their science notebook.  I thought it was lovely that ED demanded a paper and wanted to write letters on her sheet as well. She was so diligent!

2. Vacuum as a Heat Shield
This experiment also led to some fascinating discussion.  We boiled some water and checked the temperature. Then we poured some of the water in a thermos and some in a cup.
Next we talked about the vacuum in space and the fact that it is very cold.
I explained to the kids that the thermos had a partial vacuum.  Then I asked the kids to predict which water would cool down more quickly.
LD predicted the thermos would cool quickly because space (the vacuum of space) is so cold.  DD predicted the water in the cup would cool more quickly.
We went on to our last experiment and came back 15 minutes later to check the temperature.  The water in the thermos was nearly the same as it was originally while the water in the cup had cooled significantly. We talked about the fact that space is a poor conductor and thus acts as a heat shield whereas metal (we felt the end of the thermometer is a good conductor, transferring heat easily).

 3. Saturn's Rings
We have gone over the planets numbers of times in our homeschooling adventures here.  Today we reviewed the planets, their locations and sizes.

We got a piece of paper with two circles on it (the inner one for the planet, the outer one for the field of debris icy particles and rocks, that encircles Saturn). They sprinkled sand evenly on the paper. Then the kids placed the end of a Popsicle stick down which represented one of Saturn's moon. I turned the tray around and we watched as the sand was pushed away. Scientists believe the moons push the icy particles around into separate bands which make the separate rings of Saturn.

Last year we did a hands-on unit on Earth Science if you want to see some of the activities we did related to that.