A Moon and Sun Theme for Toddlers

It’s that time of year again, when the weather is dreary and we long to see the sun, and even the moon. Both the moon and the sun have really piqued D’s interest lately, so that has been our theme this week! If you also have a toddler interested in this topic, maybe one or more of these will spark your interest too. We kept our focus on just the sun and the moon, rather than the entire solar system, but I can see expanding the unit next year!

Phases of the Moon Matching - I was inspired by some beautiful artwork to create my own phases of the moon matching activity for D. I already had a bunch of felt laying around, so I used that! To make the moons, I traced around the bottom of a jar on the felt, and then cut out the different waxing/waning phases from those. I made two of each so that I could glue on one to the felt and have the other in a basket for her to match. I also made one “new moon” with black felt, that you can’t really see in the photo, but it’s there! :)

Nocturnal vs. Diurnal Forest Animals Sorting - A theme of many of the moon books we have are which animals are awake when the moon shines. So along this theme, I made a simple nocturnal/diurnal activity matching. We also learned that a couple of the animals (rabbit and deer) are crepuscular meaning they are most active at sunrise and sunset! This has been a fun activity to do while we read Little Owl’s Day and Night (see below). D loves these small forest animals (set 1 and set 2). The scene came from here.

Moon and Sun Sensory Play - As with many sensory activities, D has been very absorbed in this one. While the “day” and “night” scenes have mixed, she loves singing our moon and sun songs while she plays. She gets totally zoned in pouring, transferring, and creating with these materials.

For the blue sky, I dyed rice with blue food coloring and a little vinegar (instructions from Busy Toddler). I created the clouds with cotton balls. For the night sky, I used dried black beans and glow in the dark mini stars. I printed off images of the sun and the moon and laminated them.

Daytime/Nighttime Giant Stacking/Nesting Blocks - While maybe not teaching about the moon and the sun, these giant stacking and nesting blocks are so much fun, and along our theme. One side of each block is a day to night scene and another is constellations. This is a fun one for us to build together, but her favorite is nesting them inside each other!

Books

Moon - One of my favorite Peek-through picture books that shows the moon changing shape on each page and the animals that play when the sun goes down! Really beautiful illustrations.

Peep Inside Nighttime - This one is so much fun for D. She loves peeking in the tiny windows to see the baby waking up, the tree to see the owl hooting, and the bakery shop and construction sites where people are hard at work all night.

Moon, Gorgeous Moon - I love this sing-songy rhyming story. It allows the child to imagine where the moon might go when it disappears, but ends with “or maybe, just maybe, you disappear, for others to see who aren’t so near” and the reassurance that the moon always comes back.

Little Owl’s Night - This has been one of our favorites since D was a little baby. It’s a simple but very sweet story about all the activity happening in the forest at night. Little Owl wants to show Bear the moon, but he’s fast asleep.

Little Owls’ Day - A fun complement to the night story. In this story, Little Owl wakes up too early and sees all that’s going on in the daytime, under the sun. Bear shows him the rainbow and he finally gets to show Bear the moon. :)

Reading Little Owl’s Night to help figure out which animals sleep at night vs. in the day

Songs

We’ve also been singing a few Moon and Sun songs! Check out our Spotify playlist here. :) This is another fun one I found online that we’ve been singing together:

From https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/space-song-book-3013197

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