The phases of the moon depend on where the moon is in relation to the sun and which area of the moon is illuminated by the sun's light. As the moon rotates around the earth, part of it faces the earth and the other part is illuminated by the sun. The cycle takes about 28 days from New Moon to Full Moon. The moon rises later each night (and can even be seen during the day) because of the earth's rotation. As the earth moves on its axis, that causes the moon to appear in a differnt part of the horizon. This is why the moon can rise as late at 3:30 am.
To remember which phase comes next, having only seen the moon one night, think right to left. If the right side of the moon is illuminated, the moon is waxing, and the illuminated portion will continue to grow until it reaches a full moon. Then, it will "wane," or the illuminated portion of the moon will dwindle towards the left until the new moon phase.
I also found a YouTube video created by a 6th grade science teacher of a song to the tune of Cee Lo Green's "Forget You". This would be a tune students would connect with and may help them to remeber the phases of the moon more easily!
Until this project, I didn’t realize that the moon sometimes didn’t rise until 10:30pm, midnight, or even 2:30am! I also learned that the moon waxes and wanes very slowly; I knew the fact that the moon cycle was about 28 days, but didn’t realize how many different phases it actually went through.
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