Did you know that National Moon Day is today, July 20th?
This is the 43rd anniversary of the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and proclaimed that they were taking “one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind.”
There are plenty of fun ways that you can celebrate Moon Day in your own home and teach your children about this important moment in world history.
Here are some ideas of what you can do to celebrate today:
Make Moon Treats
Bake up a batch of your favorite cookies and use cookie cutters to make them into round full moon and crescent moon shapes.
Decorate them with icing. You can even make cookie astronauts as well, so that they can land on the moon cookies!
Kids love baking and it is a great opportunity to teach them about why the moon sometimes appears to be a different shape as it goes through its phases.
Listen to Some Moon Music
While you are celebrating Moon Day, create a lunar-themed playlist on your computer or Mp3 player with songs about the moon.
Here are some ideas of great tunes which are all about that beautiful rock orbiting our earth:
Moonlight Sonata – Beethoven
Moonshadow – Cat Stevens
Bella Luna – Jason Mraz
Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Fly Me to the Moon – Frank Sinatra
Harvest Moon – Neil Young
Man on the Moon – R.E.M.
Moondance – Van Morrison
What other great moon songs can you think of?
Explore Google Moon
You probably know that you can zoom in on anywhere with Google Earth, but did you know that you can also see the lunar surface with Google Moon?
The details are quite incredible and you can zoom in and explore the surface.
You can also check out various Apollo moon landing locations as well.
Your kids will love getting a chance to look at the surface of the moon on the computer!
Anti-Gravity Obstacle Course
Explain to your kids that the gravity is not as strong on the moon and that if they were to walk on its surface, they would be able to walk with huge strides and float through the air.
Set up an obstacle course in your backyard with lots of fun things to climb and jump over.
They can dress up like astronauts if they want to add another level of imagination to the game.
As they move through the course, encourage your kids to pretend that they are walking on the moon, taking big steps in slow motion.
You can even lift them up in the air as they go through so that they can pretend to be weightless!
These are just a few fun activities that you can enjoy with your kids this July 20th.
Have fun celebrating Moon Day!