5th Grade · Science · 5-ESS1-2

Earth, Sun and Moon Lesson Plan for 5th Grade

A ready-to-teach earth, sun and moon lesson for 5th Grade, built around earth's rotation and day and night, the sun's path and shadows, earth's tilt and the seasons, moon phases and solar and lunar eclipses. Print the plan, print the practice pages, and you are set.

Approximately 45 minutes

Learning objective

Explain day and night and the sun's path using Earth's rotation
Use Earth's tilt to explain the seasons
Name the moon's phases and tell solar from lunar eclipses

Materials

Day and Night on a Spinning Earth
The Sun's Path Across the Sky
Earth's Orbit and the Seasons
The Moon's Orbit Around Earth
Solar and Lunar Eclipses
Pencils, and whiteboard space for the modeled examples

Lesson steps

1. Ask the question (5 min)
Open with a question about earth, sun and moon that students cannot answer yet. Take predictions and record them without correcting anything. Wrong predictions are the point: you will come back to them.
2. Explore (12 min)
Students investigate earth, sun and moon through a hands-on activity, a demonstration, or a set of images. Their job is to notice and describe, not to be right yet.
3. Explain (10 min)
Now give the vocabulary and the explanation for earth, sun and moon. Tie it directly back to what students just observed and to the predictions on the board. Name which predictions held up.
4. Independent practice (you do) (13 min)
Hand out "Day and Night on a Spinning Earth". Students record what they learned and answer the questions independently. Circulate and press for "how do you know?"
5. Extend the thinking (5 min)
Ask where else earth, sun and moon shows up outside the classroom. Collect two or three examples and leave the question open for tomorrow.

Check for understanding

Ask students to explain earth, sun and moon to a partner in one sentence, then write that sentence down. Collect the sentences: they show you exactly which part of the idea did not land.

Differentiation

Extra support. Students who stall: pull them into a small group and rebuild earth, sun and moon with concrete materials or a simpler text before asking for the written work again. Do not send the page home as homework, it will just rehearse the misunderstanding.

Extension. Students who finish early: ask them to write their own earth, sun and moon problem for a partner to solve, then check the partner's work. Creating a problem is harder than solving one and it surfaces whether they really understand earth, sun and moon.

Skills covered in this lesson

Earth, sun and moon practice

Questions teachers ask about teaching earth, sun and moon

What causes day and night?

Earth spins on its axis once about every 24 hours. The half facing the sun has day and the half facing away has night. Because Earth spins from west to east, cities farther east see sunrise first.

Why do shadows change during the day?

The sun seems to move across the sky because Earth spins. When the sun is high around noon, shadows are short; in the early morning and late afternoon they are long and point away from the sun.

What causes the seasons?

Earth's tilted axis, not its distance from the sun. When your half of Earth tilts toward the sun, sunlight is more direct and you have summer; tilted away, you have winter.

Is there an answer key for each worksheet?

Yes. All five Earth, sun and moon sheets have an answer key that shows every answer, including sample answers for the questions children explain in their own words.