Bunny the hedgehog notices a piece missing from the moon and worries it might disappear after being bitten. Fox uses a flashlight, a white ball, and his own rotation to simulate the movements of Earth and the Moon, showing his friends the secret of the moon's phases. They make a moon phase wheel calendar and plan a moonlight story time for the next full moon.
On a clear night, Fox and his friends loved to lie on the soft grass and look at the stars. Tonight's moon was big and round, like a silver lantern hanging in the deep blue sky. 'Look, the moon looks just like a delicious piece of cheese!' Squirrel said, licking his lips. Bunny the hedgehog pushed up his twig glasses and said seriously: 'No, it's more like a glowing pearl.'
The next night, Bunny was the first to run to the grass. He looked up and cried out: 'Oh no! The moon has been bitten!' Fox, Squirrel, and Bunny quickly ran over. It was true, the round moon had a little piece missing from its edge, like a cookie someone had secretly taken a bite from. 'Will it slowly get eaten up and then disappear?' Bunny's voice trembled a little.
Fox rested his chin on his paw, thinking: 'The moon looks like it's been bitten, but who could fly that high to bite it? And why only a small bite?' His eyes lit up, and he patted his toolkit: 'This must be a scientific mystery! My toolkit might help us find the answer.'
During the day, Fox gathered his friends in a sunny clearing. He opened his toolkit and took out a flashlight, a white rubber ball (which he had found by the stream), and a roll of string. 'We're going to invite the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon into our experiment!' Fox said mysteriously.
'The flashlight represents the Sun,' Fox said, securing the flashlight on a tall rock and turning it on, a strong beam of light shining out. 'The white ball represents the Moon,' he said, hanging the white ball with the string. 'And we standing here are the observers on Earth!' His friends nodded, though they didn't fully understand yet.
Fox had Bunny help hold the white ball, keeping it in the beam of light. 'Now, watch me!' Fox began to slowly circle around the 'Sun' and the 'Moon', just like the Earth orbits the Sun, but he always kept his face towards the 'Moon'. 'Pay attention to the part of the moon that is lit up!'
When Fox stood between the 'Sun' and the 'Moon', he exclaimed: 'Look! I can hardly see any lit part of the moon, it looks dark!' Bunny leaned in to look: 'It's true! Just like an invisible new moon!'
Fox continued to move slowly. When he moved to one side, he jumped up happily: 'Look! Now I see a small part of the moon lit up, like a little crescent!' The hanging white ball indeed had only the side facing the sun lit, while the other side was dark.
Next, Fox moved to the opposite side of the sun, almost with his back to it. He shouted excitedly: 'Now I see the whole face of the moon lit up! A full moon!' Squirrel clapped: 'Just like what we saw the night before last!'
Fox continued to complete the circle. 'I understand!' Bunny pushed up his glasses, 'The moon itself doesn't glow, it reflects sunlight. The shape of the moon we see from Earth depends on how much of its sunlit part we can see!'
'Exactly right!' Fox stopped, 'The moon is always orbiting the Earth, so from our viewpoint, the lit part changes a little bit every day. It hasn't really been bitten, and it won't disappear, it's just playing a game of light and shadow hide-and-seek with us!' Bunny finally breathed a sigh of relief and smiled happily.
'We should write down the moon's secret,' Fox said, 'so we know what shape it will be tomorrow and the day after.' He took out cardboard, paintbrushes, and a push pin. 'Let's make a 'Moon Phase Wheel' calendar!'
They made a two-layer wheel. The bottom layer had drawings of the moon in eight positions around the Earth, and the top layer had a viewing window. Turning the top layer, the viewing window would show the corresponding moon phase. 'Today is a gibbous moon,' Fox adjusted the wheel, 'in a few days it will become a full moon!'
'To celebrate us discovering the moon's secret,' Bunny suggested, 'when the next full moon comes, let's have a story time under the moonlight! Everyone can tell a story about the moon.' Everyone cheered. 'I'm going to tell a story about moon cheese!' Squirrel couldn't wait.
Night fell again. Bunny looked at the moon in the sky and was no longer afraid. 'I know you'll get a little fatter tomorrow,' he whispered to the moon, 'until you become a round silver plate. We'll wait for you, and then have story time together.'
Fox drew a diagram of the orbits of the Sun, Earth, and Moon in his toolkit notebook and wrote: 'The moon doesn't change, what changes is our angle of seeing it. The dance of light and shadow is the most beautiful secret in the sky.' He looked forward to the full moon story time; it was sure to be a shining night.
