Phases of the Moon... With Cookies!

I love to keep my students on their toes and keep them guessing as to what I'm going to do next in my classroom!  I try to use hands-on activities whenever possible with my high-school science class and if I can incorporate food into a lesson... I usually am a hit with my students.

I've seen this idea floating around Pinterest, but hadn't seen one geared towards my older students, so I decided to create a lesson myself.  I'm not sure whose brilliant it idea it was to use Oreo cookies to model moon phases, but I think it's a such a fabulous activity! 

I do this activity towards the end of the year when my students have hopefully learned some independence. Furthermore,  I do it BEFORE I do any teaching about the phases of the moon as I think there's more power in having them figure it all out.  My students can find the information in their textbooks, but it's not laid out for them as clearly as they'd like... so there's an extra challenge for them.  I love listening to the students working in groups of 2-3 discussing how they're going to "carve" the icing and figuring out how the moon phases work.

This activity requires 7 cookies per group, which can get expensive depending on the size of your class or how many periods you teach, so I use cookies from the Dollar Store. (Students can use one cookie to represent both a new moon and a full moon - just pull one cookie apart and the icing side is a full moon and the empty side is a new moon.)  I also supply paper napkins and some plastic cutlery for students to use as "carving tools".

As the students are working I have an opportunity to wander through the classroom and meet with each group to see how they're doing.  I like to ask each group member a different question about the moon phases and see if they're able to answer orally using the cookies as props.  It makes for some great discussions! 

I encourage my students to use their labeled moon cookies to help them answer the questions I've included in the activity.  Once they have completed everything I allow them to eat the cookies... their favorite part of the day!!

Download a FREE copy of my Moon Phases Lesson by clicking the image below... have fun!!!

~Addie