The Man in the Moon: a poem

The Man In The Moon
Author Unknown

The Man in the Moon as he sails the sky
Is a very remarkable skipper,
But he made a mistake when he tried to take
A drink of milk from the Dipper.
He dipped right out of the Milky Way,
And slowly and carefully filled it,
The Big Bear growled, and the Little Bear howled
And frightened him so that he spilled it!

watercolor painting the phases of the moon

We painted the phases of the moon with blue water colors. I cut 8 x 12 watercolor paper in half & rounded the edges. We both began painting at the new moon & painted up to the full moon. We coombined our paintings to get a total circular lunar cycle. The entire thing would have been too long of a process for her to do on her own. I mounted them on construction paper and we hung them up in a circular fashion on the wall.

The Hare in the Moon: a jataka tale

 This was our main story for the moon lessons unit. It is an animal fable from the well known Jataka Tales of India.

Many strange things happened long ago, and one of them was that a hare, a monkey, and a fox agreed to live together. They talked about their plan a long time. Then the hare said, “I promise to help the monkey and the fox.” The monkey declared, “I promise to help the fox and the hare.” The fox said, “I promise to help the hare and the monkey.” They shook hands, or rather shook paws. There was something else to which they agreed, and that was that they would kill no living creature.
 

Our lessons: the phases of the moon

Along with the 2 stories, form drawing, painting,  and handwork we did, we also learned  about the phases of the moon. I drew them on the board & she put them in her lesson book along with the rhyme we learned to help  remember if the moon is waxing or waning. 

  Lady Moon, if your horns point to the east, your size will increase.

If your horns point to the west, Lady Moon take your rest.

 

 

    We also started a moon phase journal that we made from black construction paper. We are looking at  the moon every night at about the same time, and entering what we see in the journal. I had my daughter put some simple moon facts on the first pages of the journal. This project strengthens her observation abilities, and  also helps to learn how to write the date properly.