Airplanes

Hello CMP family, Stacie here with our tinker- hollow update. To continue with our things that fly, we learned some things about airplanes. We found out that some airplanes can land on water (otter) from our book, Grandpa’s Airplane. Some of our younger friends read Flying & The Airplane Alphabet Book. We learned that some planes have an engine on the front of a plane, and jets have them on the wings and some planes don’t even have an engine. My grandpa was a pilot and he flew small prop planes but his favorite was a glider. My uncle also was a test pilot and he flew F14’s and A6 jets for the Navy. My mother also worked on the A6 trainers here at the Top Gun School Miramar. I love to fly and have been flying since I was a baby. We also learned that planes are similar to rockets but they go in different directions. Rockets go up and down, just like a helicopter and airplanes just go forward. We made our own popsicle stick and close pin airplane. The kids also had a contest to see who could make their paper airplane go the furthest on the soccer field. Our airplane vocabulary words were, Drag, Lift and Thrust. We have also started our art show project but I’ll leave that as a surprise…

All are available on Amazon and other book stores

Another read a long on you tube is Planes Fly by George Ella LyonAirplane:
Material needed- close pin, popsicle stick, paint, glue
This is a really easy craft. Basically, you clip a popsicle stick into the close pin or for bi-plane you can glue a popsicle stick to the top and bottom of the close pin. You can also cut a popsicle stick in two and glue to the front of the close pin to add a propeller. Then you paint the plane and some of the children added glitter to the plane.Paper Airplane:
One of the STEM activities that I did with the kindergartener’s was a paper airplane challenge. They had to fold their own paper airplane and then had a contest to see how far their plane design would fly. We discovered that folding paper airplanes is a difficult skill and not everyone was able to fold one on their own. The children loved this contest so much that I thought, let’s do it with everyone. I folded many an airplane during these past three weeks as I knew that the younger children would have even more trouble with the folding. We practiced our color skills and throwing basics instead. Each child had to choose their airplane, not by pointing but by telling me the color they would like. Then we all went to the soccer field and I showed them how to throw the plane. Some days it was super windy and we could see lift and drag working with the paper planes. The children then went to their classrooms where they could decorate their plane.If you are adventurous here are some other “Easy paper airplanes” to make at home:Want to explore more and learn more, San Diego has a wonderful Air & Space Museum at Balboa Park. Growing up every vacation, we always found the air & space museum in that town. It is a great way to get your children to enjoy flying and to learn the history of flight. Most of the museums even have real airplanes from history to see. Sometimes you can go in an airplane for a pretend flight or even experience a simulator ride.

San Diego Air & Space Museum – Historical Balboa Park, San Diego (sandiegoairandspace.org)

Want to go for a real helicopter ride, we have plenty of places to do that in San Diego! This is just one that I found online:

San Diego Helicopter Tours | Helicopter Rides in San Diego, CA

More plane adventures:

Fun Flights Biplane Rides Over San Diego

Sky Combat Ace | Ultimate Extreme Adventure | 888-494-5850

Aerobatics — San Diego Sky ToursI hope that your children will love to fly and I’m sure some of them will be our next fighter pilots, helicopter specialists or Aero space engineers.

Look to the sky and see what’s up there, Much love, Ms. StacieStay tuned our next tinkering topic is all about Boats!