OVER THE MOON

Hello everyone,

It was so wonderful to meet several of you at Back to School Night! Thank you for taking the time to come out and connect. If you were unable to make it or missed any of the information we shared, you can review our Back to School Night Handout and view our presentation Slides at your convenience.   

Where We Were

We recently wrapped up activities related to day, night, and seasons. From there, we dove straight into exploring moon phases! To bring the concepts to life, students modeled the exact moon phase we were currently seeing in the night sky. Students have been recording their observations of the moon each night in their ongoing moon logs. We also did our Moon Phase Lab using "moon pops" to give everyone a fun, hands-on visual of how we see the phases of the moon from Earth.

Images from the Moon Phase Lab:

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Where We Are

As we move forward, we are continuing our focus on the Moon while taking a closer look at syzygy. Syzygy is the straight-line alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Understanding this spatial alignment will lead us right into how solar and lunar eclipses occur. This week is all about eclipses! By the end of the week, we'll explore how light interacts with the Earth's atmosphere and why this is important for viewing some of the astronomical phenomena we observe from the ground.

Where We Are Going

Looking ahead, we will venture beyond our immediate Sun-Earth-Moon system to explore the solar system, our galaxy, and the universe as a whole! This includes space exploration, orbits and gravity, and includes a lot of fun demos, station rotations, and a solar system design project.

If you have any questions or want to connect further, feel free to reach out at curtis_catwood@conestogavalley.org. You can also follow our classroom adventures on Instagram at @classwithcatwood, where I share updates and snapshots of what we are learning!   

P.S. Don't forget to order your student's yearbook now! It is currently at the lowest price ($22) it will be all year. You can grab yours today on the Jostens Yearbook Site. As the Yearbook Advisor for GHMS, please let me know if you have any questions at all. Students and families can also follow our @ghmsybk Instagram account for updates!

Stay Gold,

Mr. Catwood