Last night, we went for a late evening walk down by Rye Harbour, and got a great view of the partial lunar eclipse of the ‘Buck Moon’, as the full moon of July is sometimes called. The moon was huge and had a redish hue (unfortunately not really visible in the photos I snapped with our iPad), adding a magical feel to and already beautiful summer’s evening.
Amazingly, this special lunar event happened on the very day of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lift-off, 16 July 1969. A few days later (20 July), Neil Armstrong would step out of the lunar lander to become the first ever human on the moon. How crazy is it that the Universe itself managed to put on a special lunar display to celebrate that historical event?!
I love when learning happens as a natural part of real life, like this. Today we’ve followed up with a few more space related activities, such as watching a short video explaining about what a lunar eclipse is, looking at pictures of the Earth, Moon and Sun and locating the words for them (and other space terms) in Penguin’s AAC app, etc. We also did a floor puzzle with a loosely space related motif.
By the way, did you know that the word ’lunatic’ means roughly ’moonstruck’, and originates from the belief that the moon cycles might cause intermittent insanity? What do you think, does the full moon seem to affect your mood..?
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If you follow us on social media, you may already have seen me posting about this last night. I haven’t been posting as regularly here on the blog as I would like to, and I’ve come to realise that our instagram account in particular has become more like what I originally envisaged for this blog. Most of our instagram posts are long and fairly detailed, and I think it could be fair to call them microblogs.
But posts on social media generally have a very short life span, and aren’t easy to search for based on subject etc either. And there are some of you who follow this blog here but aren’t on instagram as well. So from now on, I’m going to give it a try to post more regularly on here, by using it more similarly to how I’ve been using instagram (and facebook too, to some extent). That way, the activities we do, the places we visit etc, will become part of our blog archive here, which will hopefully give them a life beyond the roughly 48 hour life-span of most social media posts. I want our posts to be of use and inspiration to others whenever they need it, not only at one short moment in time.
I hope this will make a positive change, and that you’ll enjoy more regular posts from us. They will most likely be shorter and not quite as weighty as some of our previous posts, but I think that could be a good thing too, hopefully!
Thanks again for reading, and for following us through life and learning. See you soon 😉 x
Linking up with:
Sensational Learning with Penguin 
I had no idea that lunatic actually means moonstruck. Interesting! 😀
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Thank you Michelle! I love finding out about the origins of words like these, as they tell us not only about language but also about history, cultural beliefs etc, which I find exciting 😀
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So amazing that the lunar eclipse happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission lift-off. It’s a good opportunity to learn more about the moon and space too. I don’t think the full moon affects my mood but back in my midwifery days I was always aware of when the full moon was due as those seemed to be the busier times for babies arriving! Thanks for linking up to #CountryKids
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How cool to hear that the full moon seems to have some potential to get births started! I’ve sometimes noticed that Penguin’s been acting up more around the time of a full moon… but not so much now compared to a few years ago. Perhaps it was all coincidental, who knows..? 🙂 xx
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Oh wow that looks amazing! #KCACOLS
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Thank you Sarah! It looked even better in real life! X
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I had no idea about lunatic either. The moon did look amazing though. Apparently I sat with my Dad watching the moon landing but I was only 15 months old at the time so don’t remember it! #countrykids
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Even though you can’t remember it, it’s somehow special to know that you did experience it! I get a little annoyed when people claim it never happened. Those men risked their lives and achieved something amazing, and I think they should be remembered and respected for that x
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I love the little etymology fact about lunatic. I love quirky little things like that. #MMBC
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It’s fascinating how our language can tell us a lot about thoughts, beliefs etc, isn’t it? 🙂xx
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haha re lunatic! what an experience though. my son loves space. Thanks so much for linking up at #KCACOLS. Hope you come back again next time!
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Thank you lovely! Great to hear that your boy is interested in space! x
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A lovely post! I had no idea this was happening until I saw your post on social media so thank you! The timing of it is amazing…its almost as if the universe knew!!! #countryKids
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Thank you lovely! Yes, amazing timing indeed! xx
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What a lovely experience to be able to see. And yes, very fitting that there should be a lunar eclipse on the 50th anniversary #KCACOLS
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Thank you! X
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Great to see the activities aligned with the actual view of the eclipse. Lesson learned! #KACOLS
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Thanks Enda! x
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This was nice to learn about these details. I didn’t even notice that the lunar eclipse happened at the same time as the 50th anniversary. Thanks for sharing with us on the #KCACOLS.
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Thank you lovely! It was a special coincidence for sure! x
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Your pictures look so peaceful.Thanks for posting! #MMBC
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Thank you Catherine! xx
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