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By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Staff
Just days after the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, kids at the Needham Library celebrated in their own way by making galaxies in a cup.
To start the craft, each participant was given a ping pong ball - their own personal planet - pinned on a nail. With dozens of different colored paints available, there were endless ways to decorate it. Armed with a plethora of paint brushes, the kids were ready to make their own little galaxies.
Suhani, an upcoming third-grader, made his own little blue and green planet. His sister, Arjun, painted her ping pong ball an evergreen color, before letting it dry for a few moments. Minutes after, she picked up a paint brush again and added in some pink dots. Sisters Sera and Leah made their planets both blue. Sera meticulously painted hers a a darker blue, while Leah painted her planet a lighter shade.
The participants then got to pick whether they wanted a tea cup or a mug for their galaxy to spill out of. Sera and Arjun picked tea cups, while Suhani and Leah worked to decorate their mugs. Each mug or cup was placed on a piece of wax paper, where it was glued down. Beside them was a pile of melted clear glue-gun glue, meant to represent a galaxy spilling out of the cup. The kids let the glue dry while they figured out exactly how they were going to paint it - and the mug, for that matter.
Suhani mixed a few paints together and painted his “galaxy” a brilliant red and purple hue. Sera painted hers completely black.
“I have glitter!” exclaimed Leah as she brought the bottles of glitter glue with her to her workspace. Arjun added some rhinestones to her glittering galaxy. For her final touch, Leah used a thin paint brush and some yellow paint to add some shooting stars. Sera used the final minutes of the program to use white paint to splatter some stars onto her galaxy. Suhani, meanwhile, used some blue glitter glue to accompany his own galaxy.
By the end of the program, each child left with their own individually created galaxy - a perfect, homemade reminder of the Moon landing.
