Every July, the world celebrates the first walk on the moon on July 20, 1969. For a celebratory activity, we learned about the surface of the moon, especially the 1969 moon landing. Of course, we had to recreate the moon landing with a fun moon sensory activity. My preschool and my toddler loved to walk on the moon by making our own footprints on the moon in our fun outside sensory activity.
Reading about the Walking on the Moon
I’ve mentioned our favorite learning books about the moon before. The list I created shares fictional interactions and nonfictional information about the moon for a young child's enrichment.
The book we focused on for this project was The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon (formerly published as Footprints on the Moon). In this picture book, the author describes his childhood dreaming and studying about the moon, and then he shares memories of the day he watched people walk on the moon. It ends with his own daydream that he was there too, leaving his own child-sized footprints.
I like this book because it shares a story from a kid's perspective, all the while sharing a true event from history. Since the story includes the author “imagining” walking on the moon it also led perfectly into our own imaginary play!
Making a Moon Surface
I wanted to contain our moon somewhat, but as the pictures will show, this was hard to do. Our "moon surface" splattered everywhere. Nevertheless, I started with good intentions. You’ve heard before I don’t like mess. Well, I’ve adjusted expectations since then, so I was not surprised! I highly recommend doing this activity outside in order to embrace the mess. Otherwise, place your moon surfaces on a tarp to lesson the mess.
We made two sample moon surfaces in two different cooking tins. To make the surface of the moon, I simply filled the cooking tins with flour. You could also consider using a dog crate tray (Amazon affiliate link) to make a larger moon surface. Fill the tray with as much flour (or other powdery substance) as you can to make the "moon surface" as deep as possible. Another supply you should consider is boots. Either rain boots or snow boots would provide a footprint similar to those on the moon.
Since we had learned that the surface of the moon had craters, we decided to add some to our otherwise smooth moon surfaces. We got a bouncy ball and dropped it in the “moon” to make the crater shapes. We talked about how there is no wind on the moon, so those shapes stay the same!
Putting our Footprints on the Moon
Then it was time for the footprints on the moon sensory part of the activity. Strawberry pulled off her shoes and walked in the moon tins. She loved the feeling on her feet and as the flour squished between her toes!
Since the pictures in the book showed the astronauts walking in their big boots, Strawberry wanted to do that as well. She got her rain boots and walked in the tin to make prints just like those the astronauts made on the moon.
This activity was simple. We did not spend too long either discussing or playing. But because she was able to physically become a part of the “footprints on the moon” scene, she will remember the facts. She’ll remember that men did walk on the moon, that the moon does not have wind, and that the moon surface is dusty. She’ll remember because she experienced it herself in our imaginary footprints on the moon sensory way!
