Luxna

Watch this moving 3D animated short called “Luxna” about man named Tom who, as a young boy, was passionate about astronomy and always dreaming about outer space.

Watch this video with your children and then try some of our teaching and activity ideas below.

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

English

• Write a narration for the film.
• Write a diary entry for the day Andreya disappears and the day Tom goes to the moon.
• What do you think happened to Andreya? Write the story from her point of view.
• Stop the film at 0:47. How is Tom feeling?
• Stop the film at 1:52. What adjectives can you use to describe the treehouse? What about Tom, how is he feeling?
• Compare and contrast the two settings; in the treehouse and in Tom’s spaceship.
• Compare the film to other stories about the moon. For example: Whatever next! (by Jill Murphy), Papa Please Get the Moon for Me? (by Eric Carle), The Way Back Home (by Oliver Jeffers) and Man on the Moon (by Simon Bartram).
• Watch the original version (without English subtitles). Write your own subtitles to explain what is going on.
• Create a non-chronological report about the moon.
• Create a character profile for Tom. What do you think his personality is like? What words could you use to describe him?
• Make a storyboard to summarise the main events of the story.
• Watch the trailer for the film. Plan your own trailer. Which scenes would you choose?

Maths

• Stop the film at 0:08 and look at the rocks. They are in a 3 x 3 array. How else could they be arranged? What if you add another rock?
• Calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Science

• Watch this great video from the Royal Observatory about rocks from space. There are accompanying resources to use too.
• What do humans need to survive in space? Explore the European Space Agency site to find out!
• Research spacewalks.

Computing

• Use SketchUp to design a ship to go to the moon.
• Watch the sequence where Tom lands on the moon (3:55 – 4:08). Design a game in Scratch to land a spacecraft on the moon.

Design Technology

• Make a tin can telephone.
• Design a tree house. Could you make a scale model of it?
• Design a spacesuit. Watch this NASA video about the suit design process.

Art

• Look at a photograph of the moon’s surface and make your own pencil sketches of the surface.
• Earth and moon from space?.
• Stop the film at 1:14 and paint your own picture of the Moon from Earth. Look at other famous paintings that include the moon, for example, Starry night by Vincent Van Gogh, Fire, Full Moon by Paul Klee, Moon Light by Edvard Munch.

Music

• Listen to some music inspired by the moon, for example, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Clair de Lune by Debussy, Blue Moon by Rodgers and Hart.
• Write your own song or piece of music inspired by the moon.

History

• Research the history of spaceflight.
• Write a biography of a famous astronaut.

Languages

• The film is in French. Learn some French space vocabulary, e.g. le casque – helmet.

PSHE

• Was Tom right to go to the moon? What do you think the consequences might be?