While studying lunar phases with children, ask them to observe the moon nightly and record results in a moon-phase journal. Students should view the moon at the same time each night and write descriptions of how it looks, accompanied by sketches. The students will also learn the names of moon phases by labeling them in the journal. Consult an online lunar calendar in class to compare student observations with the official data for that month's lunar cycle.
After reviewing the phases of the moon, ask students how they think lunar phases affect the visibility of stars. Measure the amount of visible stars during the four main lunar phases: New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon and Last Quarter. First, identify the four main phases on a lunar calendar and mark the dates that begin each phase. Students will count the number of stars each night and record their findings. To get a consistent count, students will peer through a small cardboard tube and calculate the number of stars seen in the hole. They will repeat this step nine times while moving to a new area each time and add each count to the night's total.
Conduct a study with students to find a relationship between moon phases and ocean tides. First, find the data for moon phases of a specific year and highlight the dates with full moons in pink and the dates with new moons in yellow. Then study the tide predictions of a specific coastal city for the same year. Find the data from full moon dates and highlight it with pink, and highlight the results of the new moon dates in yellow. You can then make a classroom graph comparing the tide levels on days with a new moon with the levels during a full moon.
Students can make lunar crafts to further review the phases of the moon. They can paste eight white circles onto a black background, then decorate them to represent waxing and waning crescent, waxing and waning gibbous, full and new moons. They might cut shapes out of black tissue paper to partially cover the moons or use markers to color the hidden portion of each lunar phase. Students can also create mobiles with two styrofoam or papier mache balls and decorate them as the Earth and moon. They can use small pieces of black cloth to cover parts of the moon as it rotates around the Earth.