Moon in your hands

From the house

• A lamp with the shade off
• A light-colored ball, like a tennis ball
• A dark room

How to play

1. Put the lamp at one side of the room and switch it on: the lamp is the Sun, the ball is the Moon, and their head is Earth.
2. They face the lamp and hold the ball out at arm’s length, a little higher than their head: the side facing them is dark.
3. They turn slowly on the spot, watching the ball: a thin sliver of light, then half, then full and round, then back to thin.
4. Say: “The Sun always lights half of the Moon. As the Moon goes around Earth, we see more or less of that bright half.”

Fit it to your child

• Easier: Hold the ball yourself and walk it slowly around them while they sit and watch the bright part grow and shrink.
• Harder: When their back is to the lamp, lower the ball into their head’s shadow: that’s a lunar eclipse, the only time Earth’s shadow falls on the Moon.

Words to use

• Moon
• light
• half
• full
• thin
• dark

Why it helps

Watching the lit part change in their own hands shows that the Moon itself doesn’t change; we just see different amounts of its sunlit half.