Sun, Earth and Moon

A three-column table fills this 1st grade page under pictures of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon, each labeled. Eight numbered sentences run down the left, each with a dashed box under all three, and the child puts a check under the one the sentence is true for. On the sheet shown the sentences are: It goes around our planet. Its turning gives us day and night. It is the biggest of the three. Its shape seems to change. It is a star. It is covered in craters. It is a planet. It is the hottest of the three.

The Sun, the Earth and the Moon are the three bodies first graders meet in science, and they often blend together: the Moon gives light, the Sun goes round us. Each sentence here gives one fact that belongs to only one of them, so the child has to keep the three apart. The patterns of the sky are the first grade idea, and this page gives children the facts to talk about them. The column pictures help a little: the Sun is drawn biggest and the Moon with craters, so ask children to explain an answer with a fact, not only by pointing at the picture.

One sheet, eight sentences, eight checks. On the sheet shown the Sun gets three sentences, the Moon three and the Earth two. This is the base page of the sun, moon and planets family; the faces go on to the moon phases, day and night, and the planets at grade 3. In NGSS it supports 1-ESS1-1. A flashlight and a ball in a dark room make the day and night sentence clear in a minute.