Moon Landing Watch Party

I got the fun (and easy!) idea from the Programming Librarian Interest Group on Facebook to hold a Moon Landing Watch Party, showing the original Walter Cronkite coverage of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing.

I served Tang and popcorn and put out some "astronaut food" for patrons to try. I only requested some ice cream sandwiches (which I cut up into bite-sized pieces because they are expensive!) but I also ended up with some fruit.

The kids were not impressed with the peaches.

I covered the trays in aluminum foil for an astronaut vibe, which also made for a quick and easy clean up.

I also made a Moon Landing cake. The craters are upside down Vanilla Wafers I sprayed silver with Wilton Color Mist Food Coloring. The flag and astronaut are printed on cardstock, hot glued to a toothpick and stuck on top.

I also made some moon landing anniversary badges to hand out.

To decorate, I printed out newspaper covers reporting the event and put them on the walls. I took down some stars I had in the children's room and hung them from the ceiling.

I used the newspapers compiled by this article.

I also brought down our astronaut photo cut out and put up our fun rocket ship balloon.

I had found a 45-minute video NASA had posted of the original CBS coverage weeks beforehand but the day of the program I discovered it had been removed. I had a moment of panic, but I found some other videos I was able to show parts from to get the same effect. Yeesh!

I was surprised by the mixed age group turnout, I had ages 4-over 60 represented.