Mount Pleasant Junior High

Teacher: Brittany Wenger

Daily Lesson Plan Form

Subject: Moon Phases

Grade Level:8th

Overall Goal of Lesson: For students to be able to demonstrate and predict the sequences of moon phases
Instructional Objectives: Students should be able to understand the orders of moon phases and what
causes them. Students should be able to begin what moon phase comes next
Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) &
ELPS: 8.7 B Demonstrate and Predict the sequence of
events in the Lunar cycle; and

Key Vocabulary:
Rotation
Revolution
Orbit
Moon Phases
New moon
Full moon
Waxing crescent
1st quarter
Waxing gibbous
Waning gibbous
3rd quarter
Waning crescent
Terminator

Stress the location of the sun, Earth and

moon while cycling through all the moon
phases.
Students should be able to demonstrate a
Solar and Lunar Eclipse and understand and
understand the causes of them the
alignments.
Know the half the moon is reflecting the
suns light at all times, it is the amount of
light we are able to view from Earth that
creates the Lunar Phases.
Demonstrate how the moon moves in its
orbit (The moon is a satellite of the Earth).
Be able to predict the lunar phases, given a
phase
Students should understand how the
revolution of the moon creates the location
difference in the positions
Understand the difference between waxing
and waning.
Higher Order Questions: What phase will appear three weeks after the new moon? What causes moon
phases?
Student Activities: Before lecture students will do a warm up work sheet over seasons which we covered last Friday.
Then We will have lecture which will cover moon phases. After Lecture students will do a hands on
activity. We will take a tennis ball and demonstrate the terminator on the tennis ball. After lecture
students will complete a moon phase wheel to practice and show understanding of moon phases. At the
end of the class period students will do an ticket out the door worksheet that summarizes each moon
phases and has students label the moon phase wheel.

Modifications/ELL Strategies
I will offer guidance if students have a hard time
understanding worksheets.

Anticipatory Activity for Lesson:

Terminator demonstration
Moon phase wheel practice
Summery work sheet

Time Allotted

Teacher Input/Lesson Activity:

20-25 minutes

Lecture will cover moon phases. During lecture students will learn about the moon, phases,
time between each phase and what causes moon phases.
Modeling:

10 minutes

Terminator: Tennis ball and lamp activity

Guided Practice:
Moon Wheel practice worksheet

10 minutes

Independent Practice:
Terminator and Moon phase worksheet (we will go over this in class)
10 minutes

Lesson Closure:
Moon phase Summary worksheet (Ticket out the door)
Assessment Methods/Strategies:

Resources: Prezi, Youtube, Tennis ball, lamps and worksheets.

Reflection: Students loved the Tennis ball activity. This really helped them understand how the waxing
and waning phases occur. It also helped students see the lineup of the Sun, Moon and Earth. To help
students understand order of moon phases we will learn the Moon phase rap song and practice
predicting.