Daughter's star party fast approaching

[pvelez (Pete)]

My 10 year old daughter's star party is approaching - like a train down a dark tunnel - I can see the light, hear the rumble and am starting to get apprehensive!

There will be 8 girls plus my 8 year old son and a mate or 2 of his descending on our place at 5pm. The plan is to keep them entertained with matters astronomic for about an hour and a half. Easy!

So I plan to:

1. show them Venus during the late afternoon - a planet in daylight hours is pretty cool

2. explain the scale of the solar system - using fruit. We can always eat a planet if it gets out of line

3. talk about the plane of the solar system and see if they can find Jupiter

4. hand out some star charts and let em loose on a constellation or 2

5. give them a pair of binoculars and some targets to look at eg omega centauri, eta carinae etc

6. set them up on a scope (I have 2) and set them some challenges eg how many doubles in Crux.

Now I know that this is a foolish exercise and it will be chaos. But the invites have gone out, all the kids have seen the eclipse this week and are hungry for a go at the scopes and, most importantly, my daughter is very excited.

So gurus - what else do you suggest I do (apart from hoping its not raining)

I do have a back up plan if its ugly outside - its still a star party if all the girls get stuck into the Playstation Singstar!

Pete

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Star Food!!!!!!!

Cakes and biscuits and fruit etc with a astronomical feel. Moon Meatballs


Now here's an easy one...Star Fruit. Really! It is called a Carambola and if you cut it into slices each piece looks like a star.
http://static.flickr.com/51/110742810_5fc07f29f5.jpg

[pvelez (Pete)]

Now there's a thought! I obviously hadn't considered the food.

The next challenge is to work out how to make moon pizzas.

Thanks for the tip.

Anyone else??

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by pvelez

The next challenge is to work out how to make moon pizzas.

Been there... done that! You put the cheese on whatever you want under it and then top it off with thin slices of salami ON TOP of the cheese which, when baked, curve upward and look like craters. Instant moon!

[leon]

Have some valium on the ready for your self, good luck..

Leon

However i'm sure it will be a great experience for the kids, they will talk about it for ages, and how lucky would you be if you happened to get a fire ball blaze across the sky.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by pvelez

Now there's a thought! I obviously hadn't considered the food.

The next challenge is to work out how to make moon pizzas.

Thanks for the tip.

Anyone else??

There are called "Full Moon" Pizzas...I like the suggestion about the "crater" pepperoni! An alternative is you can cut them into any moon phase that you want...

A few years back my son had a "moon" birthday party...we went to see the 3D Moon Movie at the IMAX and I printed up moon maps that had the Apollo sites marked on them along with some fact sheets about the Apollo program.

Good Luck!