For live links, click to: riverhouses.org/2019-apollo-11
As the whole world knows, this week is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Here’s a roundup of some great Apollo resources you can use over the next few days with your homeschool students.
If you watch just one special thing this week as a family event, I highly recommend this new documentary called simply “Apollo 11,” produced almost entirely from rarely-seen footage kept by the National Archives in Washington. It’s a full-length film that is showing in selected theaters, and it’s also available online from services like Amazon Prime:
NASA of course has a wide selection of special materials online this week (even a printable crossword puzzle for your students):
The website Space.com also has an excellent review of the whole series of Apollo missions with many video clips and links to additional information:
And for some tangible fun, be sure to stop by your local post office this week to pick up some of the dramatic new Apollo 11 anniversary stamps:
And I’d say your students should recognize the source of the astronaut image on those stamps as part of their cultural, historical, and scientific education. It’s one of the most famous images in history: Neil Armstrong’s photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface, taken with the 70 mm Hasselblad cameras that were used on all the Apollo missions. (No digital photography back then, you know — the rolls of film had to come back to earth and get developed in a tank before anyone would know what the pictures looked like.)
How will you be celebrating and studying this historic, scientific, astronomic anniversary in your homeschool this week? 😊
❡ The Eagle has landed: If you turn to plate 123 in your recommended homeschool atlas (riverhouses.org/books) you’ll be able to locate the Sea of Tranquility where the Apollo 11 lander touched down for the first time. (Did you know your atlas has maps of the moon? It does!) 🌕
❡ Stay in the loop: This is one of our regular Homeschool Holidays & Anniversaries posts. Add your name to our free weekly mailing list (riverhouses.org/newsletter) and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🚀
