A child in third grade may have a hard time understanding and visualizing just how far an astronaut has to travel to reach the Moon, 250,000 miles from the Earth to the Moon may be difficult to comprehend. To help students visualize the distance, comparison activities may be helpful. For example, if it was possible to get to the Moon by an airplane at 500 miles per hour, it would take three weeks. At the same speed, in just one day you could fly across the United States. Similarly, by car, at 55 miles per hour, driving 12 hours a day, it would take a year to get to the Moon,and another year to get back.
Kids can use their creativity to put together pictures and information of Apollo 11 for presentation to the class. The scrapbook can include famous pictures taken by NASA of the first steps of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon and Michael Collins, the astronaut who remained in the command module. Pictures and information may include the spacesuit, the moon and anti-gravity.
A series of true and false questions on what it takes to become an astronaut, can help a third grader understand what is involved. A child can be taught about an astronaut's purpose for traveling to space, the education required to qualify and good health. With an imagination activity, a teacher can encourage a child to pursue his dreams of becoming an astronaut with realistic goals.
As an activity for grammar, teachers may ask students to think of questions they would ask astronauts and discuss it in class, such as how do astronauts call their kids from far away? A child may wonder what happens if an astronaut gets sick? Who takes care of astronauts when they are up in space? How long to do they go away for? Through creative writing students can express whether or not they would like to become an astronaut and their reasons for doing so or not.