Where we are in place and time

We are finished with poetry so it's time to start our new PYP unit! This unit is called, "Where we are in place and time,"
The main idea is: Human and geographic factors affect communities.
We sat down and examined each word as a class. We wrote a new main idea together:
"The way people are, and the nature of the earth can change a group of houses, companies, and people, and where they live."

I taught my kiddos the continent song, along with movements to help us remember where the continents are. We looked through atlases and learned about things like equator and compass rose.

Continent song!

In this unit we are also learning about space and the moon. I am having my kiddos keep a moon journal. Every night one of my students takes home a paper bowl to draw what the moon looks like that night. Then they bring back the bowl and we all draw it on our moon journal.
Here's a link to a freebie moon journal.

Raghav was the first to take home the bowl.

Bill Nye has a moon video that I hope to watch with the kids eventually.

Moon

We watched an awesome movie about the moon today!

This is what we learned...

• Moon is shaped like a sphere, just like the Earth. 
• It is 1/4 the size of Earth. (Like a tennis ball next to a basketball) Because of this, it has less mass. 
• Telescope make things that are far away look like they're close up.
• The moon does not have water on it. 
• The moon has lowlands and highlands. 
• The moon has no atmosphere so it has extreme temperatures. 
• The moon has craters from large objects in space hitting the moon
• Comets are large balls of ice and dust that usually have a tail
• Asteroids are made of rock and metal. 
• Meteoroids are like small asteroids. 
• The force of gravity depends on the size of the object so the moon goes around the earth because the earth is bigger.
• The moon is closer to the earth than to other planets, which is why the moon goes around the earth. 
• The moons gravity is 1/6 of gravity on earth. 
• Rotate means spin. The moon rotates (spins)
• Earth moves around the sun. 
• Phases of the moon are all the times that moon looks different in a month.
• We see only the part that has sunlight reflecting on the moon. 
• Waxing is when the lighted side is getting bigger 
• Waning is when the lighted side is getting smaller.
• A while sky of moons would still only be 1/5 as bright as moon
• The moon and the earth play tug-of-war over the ocean waves. 

Here's a great link for looking at what the moon looks like in different phases.