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4th grade · Science · Unit 13 of 17

Seasons & Moon Phases

Patterns in temperature, daylight and the Moon's shape.

What your child practices

Practices reading data to find and predict patterns in the seasons (temperature and hours of daylight through the year) and in the Moon's appearance as it goes through its phases about every month.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 4.9(A); 4.9(B) · patterns of change in the seasons and in the Moon's appearance

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. The seasons repeat every year: spring, summer, fall, winter.
  2. Days have the most daylight in summer and the least in winter, around December.
  3. The Moon's main phases repeat about every month: new, first quarter, full, third quarter.

Example: Which main phase comes after the full moon? Order: new → first quarter → full → third quarter. After the full moon comes the third quarter. Answer: third quarter moon

Seasons & Moon Phases in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 13 of 17 in 4th grade Science, after Built to Survive: Plants and before Weather or Climate?.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which season is usually hottest in Texas?

    • Spring
    • Winter
    • Summer
    • Fall

  2. Question 2

    When we can't see the Moon at all, it is a…

    • new moon
    • first quarter moon
    • waxing gibbous moon
    • full moon

  3. Question 3

    A thin sliver of a lit Moon is a…

    • crescent
    • gibbous moon
    • quarter moon
    • full moon

  4. Question 4

    After a new moon, the next main phase is the…

    • new moon again
    • third quarter moon
    • first quarter moon
    • full moon

  5. Question 5

    Seasons repeat about every…

    • week
    • year
    • day
    • month

  6. Question 6

    Gibbous means the Moon is…

    • eclipsed
    • less than half lit
    • more than half lit
    • not lit

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