By the Light of the Moon

Integrated Science/Technology/Media Unit

For First Grade

Created by Lanette Payne, Media Specialist

Please connect with your media specialist to determine what will work best for your class and schedule. Feel free to adapt any of the ideas to help your students meet the standards. If possible, please email me a sample of your class work for our website. I hope you have as much fun using these projects as I did creating them.

They are the result of my being the elementary media representative on the science task force this past summer. If you have any questions and/or suggestions, please fell free to ask. The “tweeked” version will appear on the school website for future reference. Sometimes, I get the most creative ideas from my students as we work through the project.

My deepest thanks to Mason, my first moonwalker, for inspiring me!

Thank You.

Kid

Pix

Slide

One

Note: As a media specialist, I focused on the folklore behind the moon during media classes. The “Rabbit and the Moon” by Minnesota author, Doug Wood, is a recommended book of mine to begin with.

“The Moontellers” by Lynn Moroney has excellent short vignettes of other images that people around the world see in the moon.

There are also two websites that our students will enjoy looking at the different parts of the moon and trying to imagine what they can see. My favorite of course is the woman reading a book in the moon!

Step-by-Step directions for Kid Pix Slide One:

  1. Students log into the network as their class.
  2. They may need to log off first. Click on START in lower right hand of screen and drag over to the key LOG OFF. At the CTRL ALT DELETE screen, have them type in class number (1-2 for example). There is no password. This takes two minutes for the computer to load programs and do a virus check. I usually talk about the assignment until the Microsoft Office Strip comes up. Then the students are ready to go!
  1. Click on “My documents” folder.
  2. Doubleclick on the moon phase template. Click and Go! The media specialist or you will need to save a copy of the moontemplate (or two) in your class folder prior to their first session. Since I want to print out their picture and fact of the moon for their Moonbear Rocket, I need the moon to be a certain size so I made a template. If you choose not to do the rocket, you can have students use the BLACK fill can to fill in the background and use the WHITE solid circle under the DRAW tools to make their “full moon.” If you do both slides, students will be using all the KID PIX tools.
  1. Click on the ANIMATIONS tool (dog).
  2. Draw down to SCIENCE.
  3. Click and Drag the Planet icon onto the page.
  4. Stretch the planet using the two corner pink arrows. Their earth should be bigger than their moon. We can’t always see the whole moon even though it’s always there. Students will need to shadow in their moon for their favorite phase.
  5. Click on the DRAW tools. Select the PENCIL and BLACK in the COLOR BOX. Color in the part of the moon they CAN’T see  Now, they can draw in the craters. They should imagine what image they can see in the moon! It could be one they’ve learned about or it could be from their own imagination.
  6. Click on the MARKER and the LIGHT GRAY color in the COLOR BOX. Click on the smallest point. They should use circles and shapes to make their craters.
  7. While the students are doing this, you can go around and complete the sentence in the TEXT BOX on the template~or you can create your own textbox by clicking the ABC tool, Size 22, Bold and Center.
  8. You can teach the students to do the UNDO guy-but it will only undo their last step. They need to be very careful with their mouse. Don’t let their mouse rocket off into space!!

  1. Click on the ANIMATIONS tool again. Click and drag the JETPACK astronaut on the page between the planet and the moon. Enlarge.
  1. For students who are advanced or done early, they may add stars, one for how old they are. Click on STICKERS. Drag to Shapes and Symbols. Row 2. Click and drag the gold star on the end onto their slide.
  2. They may now click on the GREEN play button on the right! The astronaut will jet off to the moon. The earth will rotate and if your volume is turned up, the computer will read their sentence. Cool, huh?
  3. Time to SAVE! Click on File…Save As. In the File Name box, have students type their first name and then moon. They now need to rocket down to the earth again by clicking on the black down arrow at the end of the SAVE IN box and dragging down to their class. (Sometimes it helps to make a story up to help them remember the steps. It’s all about making those connections!)
  4. It may take two sessions to do this slide. The second time, when the students are asked if they want to replace? The answer is YES!
  5. As a teacher, you may insert all the slides into a slideshow and/or print the slides off. If all the slides are in the slideshow mode, you can choose different sizes when you print. This will be helpful as these slides have dark backgrounds and will use a lot of ink. (I sometimes export individual slides as jpegs to get different print options as well.)

KID

PIX

SLIDE

TWO

Note: As a media specialist, I chose to share “Sea of Tranquility” by Lynn Moroney as a backdrop for this slide, “My Moon Rocks.” The last two pages of “Moontellers” leads well into this story.” Please see the attached tranquility power point for websites and other connections that I used with my students. We actually read the book by the “light of the moon:” of the first slide. I asked two students to be Buzz and Neil and they showed us the real Sea of Tranquility of the website link.

Be careful! It can make you dizzy! We’ve turned our studio into the moon with lighting, a sparkly background and a gym mat! While students are checking out, we have students “moonwalk.” We capture this exciting moment using the digital camera!

The second session, Neil Armstrong returns in the book, “One Giant Step” by Don Brown. We watch streaming video via the Internet of the landing on the moon. Click on Launch Day or One Small Step.

A great follow up book is “Grandpa Takes Me to the Moon,” by Timothy Gaffney. As we read books both in the classroom and during media we arecollecting moon facts that rock! Each student will choose one fact for their slide.

Step-by-Step directions for Slide Two:

  1. Log in to the network as your class.
  2. Double click the KP icon on your desktop. Click and GO!
  3. This slide will take 2-3 sessions. See saving directions from Slide One directions.
  4. We’re going to do the background first-along with a little storytelling!
  5. Let’s find the moon! Click on FILL BUCKET tool. Rainbow Bucket. Drag down to ROW 9. You’ll see the moon-the 6th black and white icon.
  6. It’s dark out in outer space! Click on MIXER. Row 2. Click on #5 Icon-Black Butterfly. Click on Slide ONCE. Listen for “spacey” sound!
  7. Our moon is getting hit by meteors! Click on MIXER. Row 3. Click on #1 Icon and then on Slide THREE TIMES!!! In three different places please!
  8. The volcano lava is seeping through the cracks and filling up the craters/holes/dents. Click on MIXER. Row 3. Click on LAST icon. Click on Slide. Click 6-7 times (how old they are.) Move to another crater. Click 6-7 times. Repeat on last crater.
  9. The lava is getting cold…It’s Freezing. The craters are permanent! Click on MIXER. Row 3. Click on 5th icon. Click on slide THREE times! Every one’s slide should now look different! (Good time to SAVE here!)
  10. The moon is kind of hard to find. Let’s go find it again! Click on the GRAB tool. ROW 2. Click on the Circle. Click on Slide in upper right corner. It’s kind of spacey. Click on garbage can/delete tool twice on bottom of screen. This gives you the moon.
  11. Click on the ABC tool to make a text box. Squeeze the text box using the pink arrows so it fits in the moon. Type: My Moon Rocks! (Use shift key!) Enter once. Type: By First Name.
  12. Highlight. Bold. Center. Red.
  13. Click on the top blue bar of the text box. Move it down to the bottom of moon so there’s room for our astronauts, Neil and Buzz. You can add yourself too like in the “Sea of Tranquility.”
  14. Click on STICKERS. Drag to SPACE. Row 2. Click on Astronaut. Click on the moon on your slide. Use the pink arrows to shrink your astronaut so it fits. Click on the astronaut itself to drag it where you want. Repeat. (This is a good place to SAVE.)
  1. Let’s add a Far Out Fact about the moon! Click the ABC tool. Use the pink handlebars and the blue bar to move it to a white space on your slide. We want your words to show! Type your sentence. Use the shift key!
  1. Highlight words. Bold. Center. Red. SIZE 20!
  1. In the white space, add a rocket and the moon! Back to STICKERS. Space. Check out the different rows for the rocket. (There are two. They can choose.) They also can find the moon. For the advanced students, they can add the “meteoroid” hitting the moon “Pow!” images as well! (It’s a good time to SAVE!)
  1. Last step: Add their MoonWalk picture! (You can choose to do this yourself or have them do this advanced step. I usually do this step myself as I do a final edit before printing out slides.) Click on Add in menu at the top. Drag to ADD GRAPHIC. “Rocket down” to your class folder. Inside, is a MoonWalkers folder. Doubleclick to open. Doubleclick name. Their picture shows up on slide. Resize! Move by clicking inside picture and dragging. Don’t click outside until it’s perfect! Careful! Once you lose the pink arrows, your picture is stuck that way forever!! You don’t want to be a hot dog or a hamburger! (Easiest way to troubleshoot this is to EXIT KidPix. Don’t save. Reopen slide and try again.) TIME TO SAVE! Excellent Work!!
  2. The media specialist can create a slide show to share everyone’s work.

Final Note: One of these slides meets the standards; however, creating two reinforces the skills. As another form of presentation, I used the rocket in “Mooncake” by Frank Asch as a pattern. The “moonbear” books are great to share. Just glue and paste their KID Pix work on the rocket! What a wonderful keepsake of their first walk on the moon!

Lanette’s Lit Links

Kevin Henkes won the 2005 Caldecott award for his “Kitten’s First Full Moon!” This is a great story to act out! If you check out his website, he has an interesting story how this story came to be. The pictures are so simple, they are perfect!

There are also similar books by other award winning illustrators with the same theme but different characters: Tale of Rabbit and Coyote by Tony Johnston/Tomie DePaola and “Borreguita and the Coyote” by Verna Aardema/Petra Mathers.

Again, check with your media specialists for other resources to support this science exploration unit! Just like the astronauts said when they were walking on the moon, “This is fun!”

Here’s one last idea for you to think about! It’s probably the simplest! You can do as a class to collect those far-out facts!

1. Click on the BACKGROUND tool. Drag to SCIENCE. #6 Icon. (Lots of cool backgrounds here!) Add your textbox and stamps and you wish! Good Luck!