The Moon: Teachers

Lesson Plans for your Moon Unit

K-3 teachers: These Ready Jet Go! videos from PBS offer engaging lessons including Journey to the Moon, The Moon's Craters, Phases of the Moon, Moonquakes, and more.

Utah State University has compiled a great list of educator resources from NASA.

Teacher Planet has lots of lessons and worksheets.

The Lunar Cycle — In this lesson plan from WGBH and the NSF, students learn about the Moon's changing appearance and how orbital motion causes the Moon's phases.

Design Squad (PBS) and NASA have teamed up to create On the Moon, a complete teacher's guide with activities to bring engineering and NASA's moon missions to life for students in grades 3-12.

Amazing Space offers a Fast Facts: The Moon lesson plan with math extensions.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute offers fully developed collections of classroom activities that will enhance your moon unit.

• Skytellers: Moon Phases for young children
• Marvel Moon and To The Moon for elementary students
• Lunar Phases for middle schoolers
• Family Space Day: Moon for family extensions

Moon Activities

The Earth's Moon has some great PowerPoints available for use in the classroom.

Check out these two collections of whiteboard activities — Planets, moons and their dark sides and Earth and Space.

Engage students with Moon activities including Phases of the Moon and All About The Moon.

The Moon Landing — a great poem for kids about astronauts landing on the moon.

Take a look at these ideas for hands-on activities from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Your students might enjoy making an earth-moon model, acting out moon phases, building a moon rover, recording moon observations, or exploring a lunar eclipse.

Especially for Educators

Exploration of the Moon Continues! — Moon-related Information, Educator Guides, and Student Activities from NASA.

Increase your understanding of current research and knowledge of the moon with these NASA sites:

• Earth's Moon
• The Moon: Current Developments
• Moons In Depth
• Moon to Mars Portal
• A_Z List of NASA Websites for Educators

Check out these activities from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific: Exploring Lunar Phases with a Daytime Moon and Crash Landing!

Google Moon — Get a Google-eyed view of the 6 Apollo landing sites. Also, from this page is a link to download Google Earth's 3-D app of the moon.