Moon Phases Puzzle | STEM Montessori Wood Toy

Introduce your child to the wonders of the lunar cycle, one piece at a time. The Moon Phases Puzzle is a Montessori-style wooden learning board for curious kids, homeschool families and classrooms: 14 maple and walnut MDF pieces fit into eight engraved recesses to build all eight phases of the moon in order, from new moon to full moon and back to waning crescent. We cut and laser engrave every one at Creative Crafthouse, our family-owned wooden puzzle and game workshop in Hudson, Florida, founded in 2003.

The two wood tones do the teaching. The pale maple tone is the sunlit part of the moon and the dark walnut tone is the part in shadow. The new moon is one dark disc and the full moon is one pale disc, and each of the other six phases fits together from two pieces, so a child builds every crescent, quarter and gibbous instead of dropping in a printed picture. The round pieces turn in their recesses too, which makes getting the lit side facing the right way part of the puzzle. The order on the board is the order the real moon follows over its average 29.5-day cycle, so once the last piece is in, the whole month of moon changes sits in front of you at once.

In the box you get the engraved puzzle board (10.2 by 6.5 inches), 14 pieces that make 2-inch moons, a 5.5 by 4 inch learning key and a printed instruction card. The learning key shows each phase with its name and works as the answer guide, so learners can check their own work without a grown-up standing over them; there is no separate solution sheet. The pieces are cut from 1/4 inch maple and walnut MDF, and the phase names on the board and the learning key are laser engraved deep into the surface rather than printed, so they stay legible after a lot of use. It is an easy, approachable puzzle, made to teach rather than to stump, and it contains small pieces.

It is built for a space or science unit at home or in the classroom, and the finished board looks good on a shelf or as classroom decor between lessons. It also makes a thoughtful Christmas or birthday gift for a child who loves the night sky. One customer wrote, "My niece loved it. Her parents say she put it together multiple times." Another wrote, "My students are going to love it!" We can laser engrave a name, a date or a short message on the base, which turns it into a keepsake from a grandparent or a gift a teacher can give the whole class. We are a small family business in Hudson, Florida, and we handcraft each Moon Phases Puzzle with care. Standard orders ship from our Florida workshop within 1 business day, personalized orders within 2.

For another space puzzle, try our Orbital Odyssey solar system puzzle, 23 wooden pieces of planets, a rocket and an astronaut that all fit back into one frame, or browse all of our Montessori and STEM puzzles.

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