Holy Crickey

Moon Phase Twister

i wanted to make games for nieces and nephews at the family reunion. i decided to take a twist on a popular game - pardon my pun, on second thought - don’t. you aren’t here for my writing style, you are here for my ideas. here goes. 

materials:

1 twin or full sheet (black, white or blue are best in my opinion)
white paint (i used flat eggshell housepaint i had laying around)
blue paint (i used a small bottle of acrylic paint)
something circle to trace (i used an embroidery hoop)
paint pens or permanent marker (i used black and blue)
pencil or disappearing fabric ink
a long ruler is helpful

step one - measure

take your blank bedsheet and measure out where you want your circles to go. i’m someone who doesn’t cook with recipes so it’s hard for me to pin you down with a set number of circles. i just eye-balled it after figuring out how many circles would nicely fit down and across. 

step two - draw and paint

take your embroidery hoop and draw light circles with a pencil or disappearing fabric marker.  i drew 42 circles (7 across the top, 6 down the side) but this was for a large group of kids at our reunion. don’t feel constrained by what i did.

(image credit)

step three - paint

i went though and painted all of the circles white, then went back and painted the blue shapes over it. when the paint dried overnight, i put the sheet in the washer for a cool moony texture. i printed the above image to remind me of the moon phases as i painted and kept a tally of which moons i had used and how often to be sure it was even. 

PAINTING TIP: watering down the blue paint will crate a nice effect when you paint it over the white. notice the white portions are not fully white but have faint blue texture - this is achieved by watering down the blue paint and painting over dried white paint.

step three - paint pens

get your embroidery hoop (or other circle object you used to draw the pencil circles) and draw an outline with a paint pen. i used a blue paint pen because i wanted to be sure the kids could see the edge - especially on a full moon where it’s all white.

step four - label

write the name of the kind of moon it is - this is important because a waxing gibbous turns into a waning gibbous when viewed upside down. 

step five - playing the game

i  wrote the names of the moon phases on cards and pulled them out of a hat. you could make a spinner board, alter a real twister board, use some sort of dice,  etc. i was on a tight deadline, so i didn’t make a “real” board but you will need some random way of determining the next moon to play and with what body part. 

moon list:

full moon
new moon
first quarter
last quarter
waning gibbous
waning crescent
waxing gibbous
waxing crescent 

Body part:

right hand
left hand
right foot
left foot 

call out one item from each list and everyone on the board has to follow. for example: “right hand, waning gibbous”, “left foot, full moon” and so on….

honestly, you can make your own twister game with just about anything, types of flowers, animals, family members faces (a cheap way to inkjet print on fabric), book characters - whatever.

my inner hippie and my snobby side thought it would be cool to make this because then my kids could identify what kind of moon it was after a few rounds of this game. how cool to have a preschooler point out a waxing crescent on your drive home from grandma’s.

i feel like i made my college astronomy teacher proud today.

Post by Holy Crickey