Harvest Moon Celebration

Did you see the Harvest Moon last week? It lit up the night sky after soccer and the boys and I were mesmerized! 

By coincidence, we had read By the Light of the Harvest Moon by Harriet Ziefert the night before and discovered that the Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the fall equinox, which was Sunday. In the story, the farmers work late into the night, bringing in the harvest by the light of the moon. Once the farmers go to bed, leaf people appear magically on the wind and have a harvest party complete with bobbing for apples, stacking pumpkins in towers and a full spread of fall desserts. 

The boys and I decided to throw our own harvest celebration and learn about the moon at the same time. (The teacher in me can't resist!) We got our moon books together and planned crafts, a science experiment and cooking. In addition to Harriet Ziefert's story, we read The Moon Seems to Change by Franklyn Branley, Long Night Moon by Cynthia Rylant, Thanking the Moon by Grace Lin, and Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. Long Night Moon and Thanking the Moon were good stories to show the importance of the harvest moon in Native American and Chinese cultures. 

Because the leaf people throw a harvest dessert party in By the Light of the Harvest Moon, we decided to make our first pumpkin pie of the season. The boys are such good helpers.  

My dad's secret to a delicious pumpkin pie is to add one cooked sweet potato to the filling. It makes such a difference in the taste of the pie. Here Henry helped me mash up our baked sweet potato.

The best part is getting to eat the dessert!

Next, we got messy with puffy paint to make our own moons. The recipe for puffy paint is one part glue to three parts shaving cream. Mix it all together in a bowl and dig in!

 We drew our moon shapes on sturdy cereal boxes and got to work.

I love how the puffy paint dries and actually looks like craters on the moon! 

Next was our science experiment, which we got from The Moon Seems to Change. This book is the perfect expository text to explain the moon's phases to young elementary school children. For the experiment, you need a flashlight, pencil and orange. We drew a line around the orange and put an X on one side. 

The orange is the moon, Henry is the earth, and the flashlight is the sun. Henry turned in circle holding the orange slightly above his head, with the X facing him. I aimed the flashlight at his orange and as he turned, he could literally see the phases of the moon. It was a great experiment that both boys loved doing!

Our final craft was to make a leaf man. We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and of course, By the Light of the Harvest Moon features leaf people as well. We had fun gathering our leaves at school and in Memorial Park. This is Henry's leaf man. Can't you almost see him running off to enjoy a harvest celebration?

After learning all about the moon and celebrating the harvest, now we just need another cool front to head our way and bring fall weather back to Houston!