Beginning Sky Journals

Today we started class with a field trip outside to begin work on Sky Journals. We asked the students to face north and point, using their arms, towards east and west. Next, we asked the students to face in a direction where they were able to see the sun and moon. They all turned to face south. The students oriented themselves again by determining which directions are east and west. From there they drew a line along the bottom of their sky journal to represent the horizon, then labeled the line with E, S, and W (east, south and west). Next they drew a stick figure, using one arm to point in the direction of the sun. When the moon is visible, the students will use both of the stick figure's arms to represent the angle relationship that their arms form when pointing at both sun and the moon when both are visible.


We asked the students to sketch observations of the sun and the moon in their sky journal over the weekend.