In the past, when studying the solar system, we used an orbital model that illustrated how the moon orbits the earth, and the earth orbits the sun. Here’s my version – I don’t remember who was my inspiration for this model, so can’t credit an original source for the idea. I think it’s a good activity for ages 6 and up.

Click to access orbits.pdf

This year, for the class where we were studying light and shadow, I created a new activity which illustrated moon phases that was inspired by CLMT’s project available on Teachers Pay Teachers. This worked well for our 5 – 8 year olds. But, although we did explain how the idea of shadows and moon phases relate, the topic of moon phases was really a little beyond our scope for that day.

So, I’ve created a new model. There is a picture of a globe with a star on it (to mark Seattle area, where I teach). If you rotate that part of the planet to face the sun, you see a person with a noon-time shadow. If you rotate the star to be on the far side of the planet from the sun, it’s night time and you see a person “in the dark” with a flashlight and their dog.

Here is a free printable PDF you can download and use freely. I expect it will work well for ages 4 and up.