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Apollo Space Missions matching pairs game

Blast off on a fun space adventure and learn about the different Apollo missions with this quick card game.

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You’ll need

  • Copies of the Apollo Mission cards
  • paper
Apollo Space Missions Matching Pairs Card Game
PDF – 175.4KB
Download Apollo Space Missions Matching Pairs Card Game

Before you begin 

  • Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.  
  • Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
  • Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help. 

Planning and setting up this activity 

  • Print out two sets of cards for each pair or team. 

Running this activity 

  1. Ask if anyone's heard of the Apollo space missions. You may want to share facts of video clips of the missions. 
  2. Explain you'll be playing Apollo Mission matching pairs. Each team will be given a pack of cards that have the details of moon landings on them.
  3. Give every group a pack of cards.
  4. Each group should shuffle all their cards and place them all out in front of them, making sure they’re face down.
  5. The first person takes turns to flip two cards. If the two cards match, they get to keep them. If they don't match, they should be placed back down.
  6. The winner is the one with the most pairs of cards.   
  7. Once you’ve finished, ask the groups to put the cards in timeline order and then find their favourite fact. Can you add any more detail to the timeline? Or make an arty version of it? 
  • 1967 - Apollo 7: The first human Apollo space mission with astronauts named Walter Schirra Jr, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham. They orbited Earth 163 times and covered 4.5 million miles. 
  • 1968 - Apollo 8: First crew to fly around the moon. The astronauts were William Anders, Frank Borman and James Lovell Jr. They completed 10 orbits of the Earth and covered half a million miles.  
  • 1969 - Apollo 9: First test of Lunar module in Earth orbit, carried out by astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott and Russel Schweickart. They completed 151 orbits of the Earth covering 4.2 million miles. 
  • 1969 - Apollo 10: Rehearsal for first moon landing. 
  • 1969 - Apollo 11: First to land and walk on the Moon. The astronauts were Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins.  Neil Armstrong became the first man to step on the moon. You may know his famous words ‘One small step for man and one giant leap for man kinds.’ 
  • 1969 - Apollo 12: First precision landing on moon. 
  • 1970 - Apollo 13: Intended to land on the Moon, but an oxygen tank explosion forced the crew to return to Earth safely without landing.  
  • 1971 - Apollo 14: First moon landing in Lunar highlands. It successfully landed. The astronaut, Alan Shepard, even hit a golf ball on the Moon! 
  • 1971 - Apollo 15: The first mission to use a Lunar Rover, allowing astronauts to explore even more on the moon.
  • 1972 - Apollo 16: Explored the Moon's mountainous highlands. 
  • 1972 - Apollo 17: The final Moon landing, with the first scientist-astronaut, Harrison Schmitt, on board.  

Reflection

This activity was all about the amazing Apollo space missions, astronauts, including the first moon landing. Did you know there’d been that many missions? What was the most interesting fact you learned?  Which Apollo mission do you remember the most? It may have been the moon landings, as this was the most famous one. What do you think the next mission to the moon or space might be? 

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.

Contact games and activities

Make sure everyone understands what contact is acceptable, and monitor contact throughout the activity.

  • To make this activity easier, you could put pictures on the cards to make it easier to spot matches.
  • To make this activity harder, you could put the year on one card and the mission details on the other card. People would then need to match the year and the mission, so you may need to give them a timeline or list of dates/clues to help them. 

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

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