Sun, Moon, and Stars: Astronomy for Beginners · Part I, Ch. VI · Part 1: Part I: Our family in the sky, and its neighbors
7. A pretend trip to the Moon
Goal: Your child can describe the Moon's size and distance, why we always see the same face, and what the Moon's surface is like, and starts a Moon diary.
You'll need
- The book, open to Part I, Chapter VI
- A notebook to become a Moon diary, and a pencil
- For craters: a baking pan, about 2 inches of flour, a spoonful of cocoa powder, and a few marbles or pebbles
- Binoculars, if you have them (for the Moon at night only)
What's in the book
The chapter visits 'our particular friend', the Moon: about 240,000 miles away and a quarter as wide as the Earth, always turning the same face to us. Then the book takes an imaginary trip there: no air, no sound, a black sky with stars by day, sharp shadows, huge craters, and the Earth hanging large and still in the sky.
The lesson, step by step
Hook question
SayIf you shouted on the Moon, would anyone hear you?
Keep the answer a secret until the reading reveals it.
Read together
Read the chapter aloud. When the imaginary journey begins, your child can close their eyes and picture it as you read.
Come — it will not take us long.
Stop at the part about sound and ask the hook question again.
Always the same face
Walk slowly in a circle around a chair, always keeping your face toward it. Say: I turned all the way round once, and the chair only ever saw my face. That is how the Moon goes round the Earth.
Let your child try it.
Make craters
Smooth the flour in the pan and dust the cocoa over the top. Drop marbles or pebbles from different heights, then lift them out gently. Look at the round pits, raised rims and splashed rays, like the Moon's.
Do this outside or over newspaper; it gets messy.
What we know now
The book wondered if the craters were old volcanoes. We now know most of them were blasted out by rocks from space crashing into the Moon, which is what your marbles copied.
The book says the ground stays below zero even in the long Moon day. In fact the sunlit ground gets hotter than boiling water, and at night it drops far colder than any winter on Earth.
Between 1969 and 1972, twelve astronauts really walked on the Moon. They found the black sky, the silence and the light, bouncy steps the book imagined.
Spacecraft have photographed the far side many times. And small amounts of frozen water hide in dark craters near the Moon's poles.
Note: in the story the travelers look at the Sun through tinted glass. That would not be safe, on the Moon or on Earth.
Tell it back
Ask your child to describe the trip to the Moon as if they had just come home from it: what they saw, heard (or didn't hear) and felt.
Check questions
About how far away is the Moon?
Why do we only ever see one side of the Moon?
Why is the sky black on the Moon, even in the daytime?
Start a Moon diary
Tonight or tomorrow, find the Moon (it is sometimes up in the daytime too). In the diary, write the date and time, draw its shape, and note where it is in the sky. Keep this up for a month.
If you have binoculars, rest your elbows on a fence or car roof and look at the Moon. The craters show best along the line between light and dark.
Afterwards
Add to the Moon diary every clear night or day you can. Leave a blank with 'cloudy' when you can't see it.
Tip
Only use binoculars on the Moon when the Sun has set, so there is no chance of swinging them toward the Sun.
Answers to the book's problems
About 240,000 miles. Because it turns once on its axis in exactly the time it takes to go once round the Earth. Because there is no air to scatter the sunlight; on Earth, the air makes the sky blue. (And no, no one would hear you shout: sound needs air to travel.)
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.