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MaryM
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This month we mark the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing and there are quite a few resources commemorating this. July 16 is date of launch and July 20 is date of landing. We are doing a little historical and scientific unit on this. Anyone else doing anything?
NASA has a 4oth anniversary portion of the site with an amazing amount of information, links, videos, etc.
Google Moon is a fun interactive field trip to the moon. If your kids like Google Earth they should enjoy this, too. Up close look at the moon from satellite images with sections specifically marked as part of the Apollo program. You can click on those for additional information and pictures from the moon’s surface.
Video of first walk on moon with that famous quote.
There are some great picture books about Apollo 11 - many of them written in the past year and a half in anticipation of this 40th anniversary.
Moon Shot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (Brian Floca) - amazingly detailed and accurate account of the Apollo 11 mission and first lunar landing yet simple and engaging for all ages. It seems to really capture of the feel of the time. Brian Floca is an extremely talented author and illustrator.
The Moon over Star (Dianna Hutts Aston) - captures the excitement of the first lunar landing from the perspective a young girl in Star, TX as she and her family watch the telecast, search the skies and play “space” in the yard , all while she dreams of one day of going to the moon, too. Could be a loose biography of Mae Jemison, the first African American woman astronaut, though the author never claims it is.
Reaching for the Moon (Buzz Aldrin) - Engaging picture book written by one of the Apollo 11 austronauts who shares his early childhood, life experiences and training that lead him to reach for the moon. Also details his experience and feelings of that first lunar landing. Fantastic Wendall Minor illustrations.
Man on the Moon (Anastasia Suen) - Simple story of the first lunar landing.
Footprints on the Moon (Mark Haddon) - Told from the point of view of the author as a young boy who is fascinated with space and is full of dreams of the possbility of space travel to the moon. He looks back on the days of the moon landing as a little boy in awe.
Rocket to the Moon (Lisa Combs) - longer text picture book which loks at what was going on inside the space capsule during the flight and landihng. Includes a Apollo 11 patch to sew on.
On Giant Leap (Robert Burleigh) - focuses on the actual landing on the moon and the exploration events on the moon surface. Very well done with nice illustartions.
Neil, Buzz, and Mike Go to the Moon (Richard Hilliard) - focuses on the three austronauts of Apollo 11 from little boys with dreams of flying to the training they went through to t actual mission. There are side bars on each page that provide more detailed information about some aspect of astronomy, space exploratrion, or NASA. Very informative with vibrant and engaging illustrations.
Early Readers
Spacebusters: The Race to the Moon (Philip Wilkinson) - a DK Eyewitness Reader covering various aspects o f the Apollo 11 mission from liftoff to landing. Has interesting details about food, space suits, machinery involved.
Moonwalk: The First Trip to the Moon ( Judy Donnelly) - Step into Reading series book about the history and logistics of space travel and the first lunar landing.
Reference/resource books
Team Moon: How 400,00 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon (Catherine Thimmesh) - good source of information on the space race and NASA. Lots of historical photos and quotes from individuals involved at all levels of the Apollo program as well as from the transcripts of transmissions. Great list of resources in the end notes.
Moon Landing (Richard Platt) - If you love pop-ups you'll really enjoy this one. There is something about the rocket and it's moving parts and stages that really lends itself well to a pop-up book. Lots of information, well presented and fun to read.
Mission to the Moon (Alan Dyer) - 200 photos form the NASA archive are included in this book which also includes a CD of information and a poster of the take off, landing, and earth return stages of the mission. Includes intro chapters on the moon in general and the human fascination with it through the ages. Very interesting, tons of details to keep the space fanatic busy reading and learning.
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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Oh,and I forgot to mention we planning a lunar landing tea and are having Space Food Sticks and Tang  (like I had when I was a kid in the early 70's).
Other foods with a moon theme that might be fun:
Moon Pies
Chinese moon cakes
Freeze-dried ice cream or any other dehydrated foods... 
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Mary M. in Denver
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SuzanneG
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And so the Toddlers don't feel left out .....
A thread from the archives: Moon and Stars for Littles
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Suzanne in ID
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Mackfam
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We're very excited about this!
Did you know I was a Space Camp counselor for 7 years? I was able to meet so many great astronauts!! That was a great experience for me! I was in on all kinds of "behind the scenes" stuff - dinner with Wally Schirra, test firings of space shuttle main engines, scuba diving in the Neutral Buoyancy simulator, digging through all the old archives in huge warehouses on Marshall Space Flight Center...
Mary covered all the great books!
There are a number of great movies/documentaries available for borrowing from the library or Netflix:
Moonrace: The History of Apollo - this is the first volume - there are two.
Apollo 11: Men on the Moon
Homeschool Science has a great astronomy kit. It's a little pricey, but it would round this out to an entire astronomy unit for science studies if you wanted to.
This site has images of all of the Apollo astronauts. It would be great for printing and making a timeline.
NasaImages has some great archives of photos from the Apollo program.
The Saturn V which lifted the entire Apollo program into space was an immense rocket requiring an otherworldly leap of faith to strap yourself to the top of!!! You can see a few launches of this immense rocket in the audio/video link Mary linked to earlier.
The gravity on the moon is roughly 1/6 that of the Earth - it would make a great time to discuss all things gravity. Don't forget to include Schoolhouse Rock's Gravity
I have been saving this pdf of modeling the Lunar Surface for the anniversary...
2009-07-09_181344_180569main_ETM.Lunar.Surface.pdf
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Jen Mackintosh
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Mackfam
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More books that look interesting...
The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Michael Collins stayed in the command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the moon. This book is written from his unique perspective, but it also talks about a lot of the neat **stuff** of the Apollo program
Project Apollo (A True Book) - we like the books in this series. It's a simple read.
Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story - written by Michael Collins
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Jen Mackintosh
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MaryM
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| Posted: July 09 2009 at 7:37pm | IP Logged
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oops...I just edited the header as I realized I had the quote wrong when I first posted - So now it reads correctly - "one giant leap for mankind" - it was a small "step" for man.... 
That's what I get for being in a hurry...
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Mary M. in Denver
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MaryM
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Mackfam wrote:
| Did you know I was a Space Camp counselor for 7 years? I was able to meet so many great astronauts!! That was a great experience for me! |
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I think you had mentioned that before...but I didn't remember. That is really cool  and I am jealous  (green with envy icon ).
Great links and experiment, Jennifer! Thanks for that pdf.
We've always enjoyed the moon crater experiments you can do with flour and marbles (and other round things).
Crater experiment for littles
Crater experiment for older students
And I've just decided we are going to do a MOON poetry party this summer.
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Mary M. in Denver
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SuzanneG
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 Between our 2 library systems, we have ALL of the books/movies listed above!! (except for the first one, Mary......Moon Shot) I'm so excited!
And, OF COURSE, now I'm re-thinking our Poetry Party selections   
And, I'm about the dehydrated food!!!!
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Suzanne in ID
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Tami
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NPR covered the topic this morning, with an interview with Alan Bean. There is a podcast and synopsis here and mention of two books,
Mission Control, this is Apollo Amazon says gr. 5-8.
and
Voices from the Moon
I'm not clear about the age ranges for this one, but thought I'd add them to the list. They are both newly published, May 2009.
The podcast is very good, and not long, < 8 minutes.
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When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become. (Nouwen)
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JennGM
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Great list! Made it so easy for me to put these on reserve. And since Mary G. is now out of my county, I'll have more chances at getting some books.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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MaryM
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SuzanneG wrote:
Between our 2 library systems, we have ALL of the books/movies listed above!! (except for the first one, Mary......Moon Shot) I'm so excited!
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Suzanne, you SHOULD request that one of the systems buy this one - it is really the best of the bunch as far as a truly living book picture book. It is excellent. The rest are good, too, but this is my favorite.
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Mary M. in Denver
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SuzanneG
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MaryM wrote:
| .......you SHOULD request that one of the systems buy this one - it is really the best of the bunch as far as a truly living book picture book. It is excellent. The rest are good, too, but this is my favorite. |
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Done! Thanks!
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Suzanne in ID
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missionfamily
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Don't have time to look at the old thread...we read just about all these in the Space Exporation leg of our astronomy studies this year and the boys loved them. The littles are still enamored with If You Decide to Go to the Moon...just a darling little book.
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MaryM
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Today is the launch anniversary...
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Mary M. in Denver
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Cindy Mac
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My dad was the XO for Buzz Aldrin back in the early 70's. I was held as a baby by Buzz and Neil. 
And just for an interesting piece of trivia...Buzz gave my dad a whole bunch of memorabilia from this time, for me. There is a travel log that each of the astronauts had to fill out for the trip. It indicates that Buzz drove his personal car 5 miles from his home to the base. Then he logged 238857 miles from base to moon in government supplied vehicle. And finally, 238857 miles from moon to the ocean! My husband thought that was really cool - especially being a former govt. worker!
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Tami
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Cindy, that is way cool!!!!
Ok, more trivia. I talked with my parents last weekend, and told them about this thread (or more like discussion, 'thread' would be foreign to them).
They told me that the guy who developed the lunar camera (he was an engineer) worked with my dad (see the other thread on this topic), and was the radar specialist on board the Enola Gay and the other flight that dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.   He was the only person to be a part both strike crews.
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When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become. (Nouwen)
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CrunchyMom
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We got Reaching for the Moon at the library this week! It is good! Thanks for the suggestion. His story about riding his bicycle alone the 25 mi into NYC at the age of 10 (which, since it is included makes it seem it was an instrumental even in his life) made me think of this thread and the stories in Gatto's book (which I am still reading).
I thought that this article was interesting
Nasa Loses Space Walk tapes
Also, my husband is hosting a Lunar landing party at work on Monday after hours. He's in charge of the IT department; so, they are using the new projector and screen to show the movie The Dish It has fun scenes of the parties happening during the event.
It is about the telescope in Parks Australia that was part of broadcasting the moonwalk live. The movie is apparently greatly fictionalized, but it is enjoyable. There is a bit of language, but the accents distort it, and it doesn't really bother us, and we let our kids watch it (but maybe we wouldn't if they were at a more in between age??).
My husband said that this site for Honeysuckle Creek has an interesting video about broadcasting the lunar landing. They were the other radio telescope facility in Australia that participated in the lunar landing. It seems that even though NASA lost the original tapes, both Parks and HC have originals from the broadcast (before it was broadcast to the networks and distorted).
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JennGM
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Walter Conkrite died today at age 92; may he rest in peace. Dh remembers so much of the Apollo space program through Walter Cronkite's reporting.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Yesterday we went to the National Air and Space Museum in DC. I haven't been in years and years, and it ds's first visit. For a Friday in the middle of summer, it wasn't that crowded. This museum is the most visited of them all, and we had no problems with the crowds, which was quite a bonus.
It was just thrilling to all of us to see all the space exhibits close up and personal.
To prepare we read
The Moon over Star (Dianna Hutts Aston) and Project Apollo by Diane M. and Paul P. Sipiera the night before.
Both books were so awesome. Even dh and I really learned a lot from the latter book, and ds1 really liked that one.
I have the other books on this list on reserve and about to pick them up from the library to continue our moon quest. Thanks again for this great thread. It's so wonderful to have a good list to just click the books to reserve from my library.
I have to admit we rarely ever *do* the current events, so this was really great to visit right in the middle of an anniversary.
The great bonus was that Richard Hilliard was doing a book signing, so we got a copy of Neil, Buzz, and Mike Go to the Moon signed.
I asked what was the motivation to write and illustrate books on this Space Race and he said he was 7 when Apollo 11 went to the moon, and the impression it made he never forgot.
We also purchased the DVDThe Wonder of It All: Real American Heroes, 40th Anniversary of Man's 1st Step on the Moon. This wouldn't be for young children, but it has themed interviews with Astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Charlie Duke, Edgar Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, and John Young, and included different footage while the astronauts were giving their perspectives on their memories, the impact on their lives, including the spirituality. We enjoyed it. Interesting that Amazon says this isn't released yet; I'm holding a copy in my hands.
When Kennedy said by the end of the decade we were going to be on the moon and back, NASA had no idea how they were going to do it. One astronaunt said it was like taking the 21st century, put it in the 60-70s. It was an amazing feat. Why is it we have nothing like this that captures the imagination and spirit of America today? Are all the frontiers gone? Or have we lost our sense of exploration, determination, innovation, and American pride?
Wall Street Journal had this book review and Five Best Books on the Apollo Landing for older reading.
And for those that doubt that we ever did land on the moon, Mythbusters: Moon Hoax is being reaired on July 20. My sister said it really did a great job of dispelling all those hoax theories.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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MaryM
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JennGM wrote:
| Walter Conkrite died today at age 92; may he rest in peace. Dh remembers so much of the Apollo space program through Walter Cronkite's reporting. |
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I saw the report this morning  ...I'm sad as much of my childhood awareness of world events of the 60s-70s is "narrated" in my head by Walter Cronkite. His death is in amazing proximity to the the anniversary of the landings.
CrunchyMom wrote:
Also, my husband is hosting a Lunar landing party at work on Monday after hours. He's in charge of the IT department; so, they are using the new projector and screen to show the movie The Dish It has fun scenes of the parties happening during the event. |
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That sounds like fun! That is a great idea. Our space party will be next week (a bit after the fact) since we are still out of town. My son who is home said my order of Space Food Sticks has arrived though... .
JennGM wrote:
Yesterday we went to the National Air and Space Museum in DC. I haven't been in years and years, and it ds's first visit. For a Friday in the middle of summer, it wasn't that crowded. This museum is the most visited of them all, and we had no problems with the crowds, which was quite a bonus.
It was just thrilling to all of us to see all the space exhibits close up and personal. |
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Green with envy here ... You are very fortunate to have that great resource there.
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Mary M. in Denver
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4Real Forums : Across Time and Place
Topic: One Giant Leap for Mankind
