Waxing Crescent           First Quarter          Waxing Gibbous

*In 3rd grade, we like to think of the changing of the moon phases as if a car were going through the car wash.  First, the New Moon phase reflects no light toward the Earth, and it is like a filthy car, approaching the car wash building.  Next, the dirty moon or car travels into the wash cycle slowly, and just the tip of it gets cleaned, reflecting just a Waxing Crescent shape of light toward Earth.  Next, more goes into the tunnel, and the First Quarter of the moon is now clean.  Later in the cycle, we see a big section clean, but not full yet, so we call it a Waxing Gibbous, or the word “big” backwards.  Next, we see a full half of the moon’s reflection, called a Full Moon.  The moon continues out of the car wash, now, and begins to get dirty all over again.  We say that it must be raining, or a Waning Gibbous phase.  Then, a quarter of the front gets dark, or dirty, and we call it a Last Quarter, because we can only see a quarter of the moon reflecting the sunlight.  And, within the month, we’ll see the Waning Crescent as it gets ready for another moon phase cycle starting with New Moon, or a completely dark night.

Can you fill in the blanks below?

New Moon, __________, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, ______________, Waning Gibbous, ___________, Waning Crescent, New Moon, etc.