Moon Journal

For the past week and a half Ella and I have been watching the moon to see if it was "growing up or growing down." See previous post. Ella wanted to make a Moon Journal - so we did. She drew pictures of the moon and I wrote down her observations. Here is her moon journal below.


It was really fun to watch her the few days before the moon really was full because every day she would say, "I think it is full tonight." But then the next day, her excitement a little bigger, she would say "It is full Momma!" And then on 1/8 when the moon really was full she said, almost screaming, "It is whole! I thought yesterday it was whole."

I had a lot of fun doing this observation/experiment with Ella. It was totally directed by her and even though it was multiple days of observation, it held her interest and curiosity. I am hoping we can continue so we can see an entire moon cycle.

As I was engaging in this with Ella, I couldn't help but think about the state of science education in our K-12 schools in San Francisco and beyond. How do we change the conversation and practice in science education to be one that explores student curiosity in the world instead of memorization of facts?

Learning about the moon

Two days ago, New Years Day, the moon was out in the afternoon and Ella noticed that it was a half moon. She then asked, "is it growing up or growing down?" As a former science teacher, this just melted my heart. What a fabulous question!!!! These type of questions from kids should be driving our science curriculum!!! After all this went through my head, I calmly said, "I don't know, but we should keep our eye on it and figure it out."

Today I noticed the moon was out when I was picking Ella up from school. I showed it to her and asked if she thought it was "growing up or growing down"? She said, "growing up". Then she suggested we go home and make a list, with pictures and look at the moon every day at the same time.

My dear Watson, I think we have our first science experiment that Ella has designed. To be continued...