Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Blood Moon and Myth Writing



It is always special when there is a serendipitous event that fits perfectly into our curriculum.  Last night, there was such an event; there was a lunar eclipse that caused a blood moon.  

What does this have to do with the study of myths, you may wonder?  Well, in our study of myths from around the world, we read many myths that tried to explain the pictures people thought they saw on the surface of the moon.  I decided the children could imagine what stories people might tell to explain the blood moon and write their own myths.

Before we started the "blood moon myths", I explained what scientists have discovered about  lunar eclipses and why the blood moon occurs.  We looked at photographs from last nights moon and a diagram of how the sun, earth and moon are aligned. 

After discovering the scientific explanation for blood moon, we imagined what stories people might have told about this phenomena.  I suggested that when writing their myths, they might think about the myths we have been reading.  For instance, the myths often have god and goddesses and/or animals in the stories.  Some children set right to work writing, while others took time to come up with ideas, but by the end of the writing period, the myths were well underway.  The myths should be completed soon. I can't wait to see what the children come up with.

We did not watch the videos of the eclipse during class but if you are interested to watch it with your child, there are several time lapse videos on YouTube.  In this one, the eclipse is striking but the red color is not as distinct as the still photos.

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