Up, up, and away!

Okay, these past few weeks have been busy!  Fun busy, but busy... you'll see why in these next few posts.  I fell a little behind with my blogging, so hopefully I'll have time to catch up.

A few weeks ago we had a wonderfully fun and exciting unit study reading The Glorious Flight and studying all things flight.  I managed to take quite a few pictures so you can see just what our week involved.  A HUGE thanks to my mom for helping me find all the flight stuff!!!  This week was so much more fun with her help!

Monday:  We read the book, The Glorious Flight, and learned a little about France.  I found some cute books at the library, and also a kids CD that played French versions of popular songs.  The boys made French flags, and we labeled the parts of an airplane.  We also talked about gliders, and why they work.  I found some gliders at the dollar store, and we spent the afternoon flying!  Oh yeah, we also started the study off with a cute airplane snack.

 

 

Tuesday we learned about the first flights involving heated air.  We made a hot air balloon out of tissue paper, and filled it with hot air from the blow dryer.  The hot air balloon was simple to make.  Take two sheets of tissue paper, fold length-wise, and cut into a balloon shape (I'm not crafty, so a rough cut is fine!).  Glue around the edges, but keep the bottom open.  Insert the hair dyer, fill with air, then release, and (hopefully) watch it rise.  Ours didn't at all.  The experiment book we were using said it worked best in very cold weather.  Our high here in Texas was in the 90's that week, so oh well.  Lucas proclaimed the experiment an "epic fail" when it didn't rise, but we are keeping the balloon and hope to try again when (if) it gets cold.  It was fun anyway, and the boys got the idea.

 

 

 

Wednesday we talked about modern planes, and why they work.  We talked about the wings of an airplane and how they provide lift.  We did air experiments from the Usborne book, Fun With Air.  I didn't get any pictures this day, but we had a lot of fun.  I like Usborne, and all the experiments were fun, simple, and fast. 

 

 

Thursday was my "big event" next to the Air Show.  I've been planning this day all week.  We studied thrust today.  To get the idea of thrust, we attached 2 strings across our school room.  The boys blew up the long party-style balloons (I found some "screaming" balloons at the dollar store, so they were loud to boot), and taped them to toilet paper rolls.  We had balloon races all afternoon!  It was a hit, to say the least. 

 





 

 

We topped off the event by going to an Air Show on Friday.  What fun!!  This was our first air show, and it was pretty impressive!  What a FUN way to end a FUN week.  The boys knew their stuff, and were asking awesome questions to the soldiers after the show.  We got more than a few "Wow!  That's a really good question!"  It's amazing how much they learn through doing, and I'm loving this confidence in them to ask questions and explore further!  We'll see you next week!!