Takeoffs and Landings

For this program the kids made all sorts of fun stuff: paper airplanes, parachutes, roto-copters and hot air balloons.

Paper Airplanes:

Using books to make paper airplanes

Testing planes

Skill Testing

 Roto-Copters:
These were cut out using an Accu-cut die onto card stock, construction paper and printer paper.  We didn't have time to test which weight of paper worked the best.

Hot Air Balloons:

We found the idea on this website and modified it for older kids and time.

http://www.sewhomegrown.com/2011/03/kids-craft-mommy-craft-hot-air-balloon.html

We cut card stock into 1x6 inch strips.  The kids used tempera paint dabbers to decorate their strips.  Once done and dry, we punched holes on one end and connected the strips together using metal brads.  We also punched a hole on the other end and curved the ends up  into a balloon shape, adding an additional brad.  The kids cut yarn strings to attach a 1 1/2 x 4 inch basket to their balloon.

For some reason I don't have a picture of a finished balloon.  This is from the Sew Home Grown blog.  We did not make ours into mobiles.

Parachutes:

We cut 8 x 8 squares out of black plastic garbage bags, tissue paper, and regular grocery sacks.  We punched holes in the four corners.  (To make it easier for the hole punch to work on the plastic, we taped the corners on some and added round stickers to others).  We also cut four equidistant holes on coffee filters. The kids picked one from the four options and cut lengths of yarn to tie on each corner.  We tied the ends together and let the kids test them using clothespins as weight.

Testing from the landing.

Black plastic bag parachute

It's hard to see, but these are roto-copters falling down.

Due to the large number of kids at our first session, we only did the testing from the landing during our smaller evening session.  The kids were well behaved and the patrons didn't seem to mind the items falling onto them.

Attendance: 30, 5

Evaluation: This program didn't go as planned in that I had hoped to do a lot of testing of the different materials to see if material weight made a difference in performance.  I think the program needs to be restructured in order for that to happen.  Each child would have to do the same project at the same time with testing following after creation.  That being said, the kids had a blast.  The hot air balloons required a lot of staff involvement when it came to assembling the balloons.  The younger kids also had a hard time tying the yarn to the parachutes and many didn't cut long enough strings.  With tweaking, a program to run again.