1. Highlighter Moon Phases
For today’s activity, you will need a highlighter pen OR a colored pencil, and a black pencil or your regular writing pencil. Markers are too dark and will bleed through to the back of your pages.

2. sunlight
On page 16 of OUR MOON booklets we have this chart. It represents the sun, moon, and Earth as the moon goes through its phases.

3. Earth sunlight space view view
The first thing we need to do is label EARTH, the small outside circles as EARTH VIEW, and the connected inner circles as SPACE VIEW. Remember, Earth needs a capital “E”.
Use your highlighter or pencil to show sunlight coming with arrows all along the right edge of the diagram.

4. Earth sunlight space view view
Because sunlight is always hitting the half of the moon facing the sun, we can color this half in with the highlighter.

5. Earth sunlight space view view
Carefully follow this sunlit part of the moon down the center of the Earth circle.

6. Earth sunlight space view view
Use your black pencil or regular writing pencil to color in the parts that do not have direct sunlight on them.

7. New Moon
New Moon
Now, turn your book so that the word SUNLIGHT is facing up like this. Color the first outside circle completely black, and label it to represent the NEW MOON. This is what we see from Earth if we are looking at the moon and the sunlight is shining directly behind it.

8. Waxing Crescent Waxing Crescent New Moon
Turn your book a little to the right so that you are looking at the moon with the word SUNLIGHT facing slightly to the side like this. Make a small crescent of light and color the left side of the circle completely black. Label it to represent the WAXING CRESCENT. Be careful to spell it with the “s” and “c” in crescent.

9. First Quarter First Quarter Waxing Crescent New Moon
Turn your book a little more to the right so that you are looking at the moon with the word SUNLIGHT facing to the right. Because the sun is now at right angles to the moon, we see the face that is half lit by the sun and half in darkness. Color this in and label it FIRST QUARTER. Use the word “first” and not numbers; “quarter” is spelled with a “qu”.

10. Waxing Gibbous Waxing Gibbous First Quarter Waxing Crescent New Moon
Turn your book a little more to the right so that you are looking at the moon with the word SUNLIGHT opposite the corner you are looking at. Now more than half of the moon’s face that we see is in sunlight, so we color and label this the WAXING GIBBOUS. “Gibbous” has two “bs” and an “ous” at the end.
New Moon

11. Full Moon Full Moon Waxing Gibbous First Quarter Waxing Crescent
Now, turn your book so that the word SUNLIGHT is next to you. Color the outside circle with your highlighter, and label it to represent the FULL MOON. This is what we see from Earth if we are looking at the moon and the sunlight is shining directly onto it from behind us. During a full moon, the moon appears to rise at the same time that the sun appears to set, as they are directly opposite each other at that time.
Waxing Crescent
New Moon

12. Waning Gibbous Waning Gibbous Full Moon Waxing Gibbous First Quarter
Turn your book a little more to the right so you are looking at this corner. More than half of the moon’s face is still lit by sunlight, but we see darkness on the side at the right – the moon is WANING (going awaaaaaaay) so we color and label this the WANING GIBBOUS. Look at the spelling of “waning” – it doesn’t have an “e” in it. Remember, “gibbous” has two “bs” and an “ous” at the end.
First Quarter
New Moon
Waxing Crescent

13. Third Quarter Third Quarter Waning Gibbous Full Moon Waxing Crescent
Turn your book a little more to the right so the word SUNLIGHT is at the left side. Notice that the SPACE VIEW of the first quarter and third quarter moons look the same. The moon and sun are again at right angles to each other. The sunlight is always shining on half the moon, BUT when we are looking at it from Earth, we are seeing the right side in darkness now. The moon is three-fourths, or three-quarters, of its phases complete. Color and label this THIRD QUARTER. Use the word “third” and not numbers; remember that “quarter” is spelled with a “qu”.
Waxing Crescent
Waxing Gibbous
First Quarter

14. Waning Crescent Waning Crescent New Moon Third Quarter Waxing Crescent
Waning Gibbous
Turn your book a little more to the right so that you are looking at the moon with the word SUNLIGHT facing slightly to the left side like this. Make a small crescent of light and color the right side of the circle completely black. Most of the moon is now in darkness on the right side – remember that it is going “awaaaay’ so it is a waning crescent. Be careful to spell it with the “s” and “c” in crescent.
First Quarter
Full Moon
Waxing Gibbous

15. First Quarter Waxing Crescent Waxing Gibbous New Moon Full Moon
The eight main phases of the moon are now complete! (Student), how long does it take for us to see all the phases of the moon? (29.5 days) (Student), how long does it take for the moon to go from a NEW MOON to a FULL MOON? (about days – about two weeks) (Student), how long does it take for the moon to go from a NEW MOON to its FIRST QUARTER? (about seven days – about a week)
(Student), tonight the moon is in its ______________ phase. What would I expect to see if I look up at the night sky a week from now? (e.g., if tonight is a full moon, we would see the third quarter)
Now listen carefully, because this is important. If we are looking at this page from above it, like we are doing now, we are really looking down on the Earth, moon, and sun as if we were an astronaut floating in space. The moon always looks the same from this viewpoint – half in sunlight, half in darkness. The ONLY way we can see the phases of the moon is if we pretend that we are looking from the EARTH [CLICK] towards the moon at different times in the month, in which case we have to keep turning our book around to look directly at the moon.
Waning Gibbous
Waning Crescent
Third Quarter