Science Friday/Flight

As I mentioned, we will continue October's theme of flight through November (at least) by doing flight-related experiments on Science Fridays.

Today I read How People Learned to Fly, and reviewed the terms the children have been learning (lift, thrust, drag and gravity). At the back of the book there was a diagram of how to make a basic paper airplane. This led to a rather intense discussion on other airplane designs. Emma wanted to demonstrate her special design, and many of the children had a lesson from her. Others wanted to follow the steps in the book. Other children just wanted to make it up as they went along.

I supplied lots of paper, paper clips (to test how weight placed on various parts of the craft affect flight) and scissors. Our hallway was marked off by meters, so as planes were designed and built, students could go and immediately put them through test trials.