Space Month: September

🌓 Week 1: Make a Moon box

You need: a shoebox with a lid, a ball about the size of a ping-pong ball (or a ball of foil), a string and tape, a small flashlight, a pencil.

1. Hang the ball from the middle of the lid on a short string, so it dangles in the middle of the box.
2. ✂️ Grown-up step: Cut a peephole in the middle of each of the four sides, and one more hole in a corner for the flashlight.
3. Shine the flashlight in through the corner hole. That's the Sun.
4. Look through each peephole in turn and draw what you see: a full ball, half a ball, a thin crescent, or almost nothing.

Why it works: The ball is always half lit, like the Moon. What changes is how much of the lit half you can see from where you look. That's all the Moon's phases are.

🗺️ Week 2: Take tonight's sky tour

You need: a phone or tablet with Peabody, a clear night.

1. Open Tonight's sky tour and go out with a grown-up.
2. Follow Peabody's five steps, one at a time. Tap Found it for each one you see.
3. Pick your favourite and find it again tomorrow night, without the tour.

Why it works: Knowing which way to face and how high to look (one fist held out is about ten degrees) is how astronomers find their way around the sky.

🕰️ Week 3: Make a shadow clock

You need: a stick or pencil, a lump of play dough or a flowerpot of soil, chalk or small stones, a sunny day.

1. Stand the stick up in the dough, on a sunny sidewalk or a sheet of paper.
2. Every hour, mark the end of the stick's shadow and write the time.
3. At lunchtime, find the shortest shadow. Which way does it point?

Why it works: As Earth turns, the Sun seems to move across the sky, and shadows swing around. The shortest shadow, around midday, points north from most of the US.

Little ones: Never look at the Sun: watch the shadow instead.

🔭 Week 4: Count the stars in a tube

You need: a paper towel tube, a clear night, a pencil and paper.

1. Go outside with a grown-up and wait ten minutes for your eyes to get used to the dark.
2. Look straight up through the tube and count every star you see in the circle.
3. Do it three times in different parts of the sky and add them up.
4. Try again somewhere darker, or on a night with no Moon. Do you count more?

Why it works: Lights from towns hide the faint stars. Counting stars in a tube is how scientists and families everywhere measure how dark their sky is.