How does the moon work?

[PBO]

My daughter asked me this last night how the moon worked, so I gave an explanation I thought a tired 8yr old would understand...earth shadows moon etc

"But Dad how come I can see the moon during the day?"..."why can you see a full moon in the middle of the sky?"

So we spent the next hour using balls & a flashlight to show her how it really works but she couldn't get the perspective thing

"can't you show me on the computer?"...err, OK. So I found the following flash which I thought was pretty cool http://astro.unl.edu/naap/lps/animations/lps.swf so if ever a kid asks you can use this rather than balls, string & flashlight...

Funny thing was I retold the story to colleagues today & none of the three could understand why my daughter was challenging the shadow theory, "that's how it works" was one comment from someone who knows celestial navigation!! WTF!! (the other two can navigate also) you can imagine the look on their faces when I emailed the flash link

[suicideneil]

Thats crazy, everyone know the moon is made of cheese & is lit up from inside.

Awesome link, thats in my favourites now- always pondered the whole shadow thing & times of day etc...

[simplechamp]

The truth is there is no moon. NASA created it as a hoax so they would then be able to start a moon race with the USSR and then create a hoax moon landing on a moon that really never existed.

[Finnster]

lol.. my 3 yr old is really into space and planets right now and we had a similar conversation w/ flashlights and toy balls also. Little different tho as a 3yo will buy whatever bs you are telling them. :)