I'm absolutely thrilled to be kicking off this blog! If you missed my welcome post, you should know that every week I will be sharing a picture book and a pretend play activity to go with it. I hope this is as exciting for you as it is for me! Because we love books and imagination around here. This week, we were very excited to read Moon's First Friends by Susanna Leonard Hill, illustrated by Elisa Paganelli. This one has been on my read list since its release, and I was thrilled to finally pick up a copy. I was not at all disappointed. Moon's First Friends was a stellar telling of the Apollo 11 visit to the moon, told from the moon's perspective. It was fun and fresh, while still providing facts and history. Narrative nonfiction is pretty great, friends. The illustrations are gorgeous and you close the book feeling like you yourself have a new friend in the moon. My four year old was completely mesmerized. And of course, we had to play astronauts for days.
And a good game of astronaut needs a proper space helmet. We had a blast making these super easy helmets. All you need is a large brown paper sack, some colored paper, and these templates for the face cutout, buttons, antenna, and star. Unless of course you, unlike me, have art skills and can just freehand a great star. Then obviously, go for that!
Just download the templates, print, trace the star, antenna, and buttons onto different colors, and cut out.
Trace the large circle onto the brown paper sack and cut out.
Glue on the buttons, start, and antenna.
Blast off!
Some ideas that can expand this activity:
Build a rocket ship out of old boxes and let the kids color and design it any way they like.
Pretend that you are walking on the moon by taking long, slow steps/jumps.
Pretend to be floating in outer space.
Pretend that you are Mission Control while the kids play astronaut. You can send commands and instructions to your crew.
My girls especially loved when I pretended to be their Mission Control. We had so much fun sending them to the moon and various planets to complete different missions. My favorite was when I sent my 4 year old to Venus and she came back reporting that there is no life on Venus, and no water on Venus. So you have to buy water bottles at a vending machine for $7. haha! I sure love her imagination. And I love this simple activity and how easy it is to throw together.
So go on and pick up a copy of Moon's First Friends and blast off on a great adventure with your little ones!
Let me know about your outer space adventure in the comments below!
I'm also extending the window for our blog kick off giveaway, so just follow and retweet this post for a chance to win my entire set of Book quotes, including this fun quote from Alice In Wonderland about imagination. Enter by next Wednesday, September 18th.
