“Have you ever had a Moon Pie?” JDaniel asked me when he got into the car a couple of weeks ago after school. “Why? Yes, I have,” I replied. “ Did you know you could learn about the moon cycle with one?” JDaniel queried. “Can you tell me how you did your Moon Pie moon cycle phases activity?” I asked him. “No,” he said, “I will have to show you.”
When I stopped at the store last week to pick up an extra gallon of milk, I noticed a display of Mini Moon Pies just as I came in the store. I just had to get a box of them so, JDaniel could show me how to explore the moon cycle phase by phase.
To say that he was thrilled would be an understatement. He loved that I bought Moon Pies and that he was going to get to show me the moon cycle activity.
Here is what he said I needed to do to create the moon cycle phases:
First you have to nibble craters around the Moon Pie. The moon is filled with craters.
Next you have to use your finger nail to draw where you will need to bite the Moon Pie to create a gibbous moon. Be careful to not overbite or you will skip a moon phase.
Draw an arc on the Moon Pie to indicate where you will need to bite to create a quarter moon. You will notice that the moon is getting smaller and smaller I was told. He held up this Moon Pie to show me what my Moon Pie should look like. (Did I forget to tell you that I was doing this activity too?) Then we took a large bite of the Moon Pie up to the mark we had made.
Finally take a small bite out of the remaining Moon Pie to create a crescent moon. I was told that I didn’t need to mark my Moon Pie this time. I just had to be very careful when taking a bite.
The phases of the moon aren’t completed I was told, but the treat is. “Just pop it in your mouth and I will tell you want the next moon phases are!” he told me.
He explained that there would a new moon, another crescent, another quarter, and another gibbous stage. “This time that add to the moon. They don’t take away. Since you can’t do that with a Moon Pie, you will have to imagine it.”
I thought about what he had said about having to imagine it. Then I search on Pinterest and found a creative moon cycle phase idea from Little Family Fun that uses frosting on top of the Moon Pie to show the moon phases. I think this idea might help us complete the moon phase cycle. We will have to try it.
Here are some moon themed activities tied to books we have done:
If you decide to try either of these moon cycle activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about how it went or share a picture of it on my Facebook page.
Such a yummy scientific experiment 🙂
An interesting way to learn!
What a great activity! I think it’s fabulous that JDaniel was doing the teaching during the activity. That means it really made sense to him. Thanks for this great idea. Pinning and sharing.