 Hi everyone, my name is Kevin and I'm a learning guide at the Long Beach Public Library and today I'll be showing you how to make a moon journal. If you haven't signed up for summer reading just yet, be sure to visit longbeach.beanstack.org to start earning prizes for all the reading you're already doing this summer. And if you are already signed up, make sure to enter the code Nebula in the activities tab of your Beanstack account to make sure you get credit for joining us today. The moon is the biggest and brightest object in the night sky. And if you look carefully, you'll notice that its shape changes a little bit each night. On some nights, you won't be able to see the moon at all. With a moon journal, we can record how the moon looks each night so we can start tracking these patterns over time. For this activity, you can use the printouts linked in the video description or use any other journal you might have laying around. I use the printouts to make a Japanese bound journal using the make time guide linked in the video description. Every night, go outside and look into the sky to observe the moon. What do you notice? Draw a picture of the moon's shape, shading in the portions that you can't see and write down anything else you observe. Make sure to write down the time that you noted the moon as well. If you can't see the moon on a day, just put an X over that day. That'll happen. At the end of a week or month, look back at your journal and look at the shapes of the moon and its place in the night sky. What do you notice? Do you see any patterns? If you watch carefully, you'll notice that the moon appears to change its shape a little bit each night. This happens because the moon is orbiting around the earth, and we see different amounts of the moon depending on its position. It takes the moon about one month to go through its complete series of phases or shapes. Cultures around the world have tracked these phases to help farmers know when to plant and when to harvest their food and track the changing seasons. With a moon journal, you can track the changing months also. Thanks for joining us today, and make sure to check out the books we have in our children's section to learn more about the moon.