If You Want to Throw a Star Party, Part 3: 1 month out

The LPI campus is beautiful! I highly recommend checking out the library while you’re there, too.

Annnnd we’re back, with part 3 of the Star Party plan.

At T-minus 1 month to Star Party, I went to the Lunar and Planetary Institute to pick up the Molten Moon display, and put it out in our lobby. It was really cool to watch people of all colors, backgrounds, and ages pause to read it. I love museums, and part of what I loved about Star Party was that it brought a museum-type experience to our customers for free. Many of the people who enjoyed the LPI exhibit were not people who came to Star Party, but at least they got to participate in a small way! And when I did see families stopping to read it, it was the perfect opportunity to invite them to the party.

In the children’s area, Agnes the super intern put up the beautiful display she had made, and I put out space books.

I also created invitations to hand to customers. Full disclosure: these were not communications-approved, but they were very effective. They were star-shaped! So kudos to the volunteers who cut them out. I know that those stars did a lot for spreading the word within our branch.

 I printed out the black and white image on yellow construction paper.

Also at one month, I started my passive program. Funny story: I don’t think any of the kids who did Star Search actually came to the Star Party, but they sure had fun solving the clues. It was still summer, so it was nice to have something for the older kids to do in the children’s area.

At this point on the timeline, you should also be prepping your crafts. Asking the youth list for baby food jars if you need them, piling up your craft fluff, etc*. I printed out the phases of the moon flipbooks on cardstock and had a wonderful volunteer chop them up with our paper chopper and punch holes so that all the kids had to do was put them in order and tie them with string.

Sometime in the month preceding your program, you will go to LPI to pick up the planetarium and get trained on it. The education lead at LPI will walk you through how to set up the planetarium, and give you a sample spiel. Inside the planetarium you will set up a projector. This consists of a light bulb with 2 film canisters that fit around it to project star images on the inside of the dome. There are 2 canisters: 1 that has constellation drawings, and one that is just stars.
Fun fact! The constellation drawings come from H.A. Rey’s book Stars: a New Way to See Them

I had no idea that the creator of Curious George was also an astronomer! This book is fantastic (don’t worry, it’s been updated since its original publication in 1952), and I used it extensively to prepare for my planetarium shows. I’m going to be honest and tell you that I did most of my studying the night before. You don’t have to be an expert to lead planetarium shows, but it does help to have some familiarity with what you’re looking at!
If you decide to throw a star party, let me know and I can share my spiel with you.

*I forgot to say in my 4-months-out post that that is when you really want to order any supplies that you will need but don’t have. For instance, if you want to give away cosmic stickers or give people star tattoos**, or if you want a specific kind of jar for your nebulas, or you need cardstock for flipbooks. You can use some of your $200 to buy these supplies and/or cool space-themed items. Oriental Trading even has a pretty cool astronaut dress-up helmet for just 6.99!

**getting a little David Foster Wallace-y here with my footnotes, but these are the star tattoos that we used :)