This month our learning box from Experience Early Learning has transformed us into Space Explorers, and you know that means we have to blast off to the moon!
The moon is something that has always fascinated my children. They see it sometimes during the day, most of the time at night; it changes its shape, color and size! What’s not to wonder about the moon?!
Question
We always start out with a little reading about our topic and today I read from Stars and Planets . The photographs in this book are captivating! My 6 year old noticed the picture in the bottom left hand corner of the page and asked,
“Momma, what made all those circles on the moon?”
Perfect timing to discuss craters and bring in our STEAM lesson from my Exploring Early Learning teacher’s guide.
Big Question 
Inspiration Photo
Hypothesis and Research
I showed them the picture of the moon’s surface you see above and asked, “What do you think caused these circles called craters on the moon?”
“Comets! Asteroids!”
Then I asked them what they thought comets and asteroids were made out of and they concluded rock. Okay then. Why don’t we see if we can make craters too with some rocks, but first we have to make moon sand!
Experiment
Now that we had our moon sand, we set up our experiment outside and the kids collected some rocks they wanted to test in making their craters.
In conducting an experiment you have to have only 1 changing variable. For us it was the rocks. With that in mind, we tried to drop our rocks consistently from the same height to see what kind of craters formed.
Conclusion
The kids tested all sorts of rocks focusing on how big they were and how heavy they felt. Their favorite craters came from our rocks that looked like balls and were heavy. They left perfectly round craters in the moon sand (pictured above) while the little rocks hardly impacted the surface. Although some rocks were big, if the shape wasn’t ball like, the crater was not really “good.”
“Momma! I want to make craters with this one!” She loved dropping that round rock and observing the craters left behind.
My kiddos played and played with the moon sand in all sorts of ways and when my daughter had to take something for show and tell to her Mother’s Day Out class, guess what she brought?
The moon sand. And she explained to her class about our experiment, and of course all the kids who saw it wanted to play and learn with it too.
So thankful for our Experience Early Learning bus box and all the love of learning that takes place with it.
