Air Transportation Lesson for Preschool: Make Paper Airplanes & Learn About Flight

Air Transportation Lesson for Preschool: Make Paper Airplanes & Learn About Flight
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Transportation Lesson Plan

Circle Time:

Questions:

  1. Have you ever ridden in a plane?
  2. Have you ever ridden in a helicopter?

Asking questions such as these two questions will establish what the children know about air transportation and if they have previous experience with these forms of transportation. This aids in building the teacher’s lessons on what the children still need to learn about in this area of transportation.

Music and Movement:

Songs:

  1. “I’m a Little Airplane” sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.”

Stories:

  1. <em>Airplanes (Sticker Stories)</em> by Edward Miller
  2. <em>The Story of Flying</em> by Lesley Sims and Stephen Cartwright
  3. <em>Young Amelia Earhart: A Dream to Fly</em> By Sarah Alcott and James Anton
  4. <em>Young Orville and Wilbur Wright: First to Fly</em> by Andrew Woods

Math:

For the math activity, use toy planes or helicopters of various colors such as red, blue, and gray. Have the children sort the planes or helicopters by color, count them, and put them in patterns such as two red, one blue, and two gray and so on. The teacher can also do patterns by one plane and two helicopters for the children to try on their own. This math activity works on sorting skills, counting skills, and skills in creating patterns and duplicating patterns the teachers creates for the students to copy.

Science:

For science, make and fly paper airplanes with the class. Another fun activity would be to buy little toy plane kits. There are several great plane and glider kits at the Oriental Trading website. This would be a fun activity to take outside on the recess grounds because flying the planes outside will be better than in the classroom. Having the children make their own planes and flying the planes they have made is a fun learning experience for them. Sometimes it may take a couple tries to make the plane correctly to fly for any distance, but this is the learning experience.

Language:

Read <em>Thomas and the Helicopter Rescue</em> By Rev. W. Awdry aloud to the class.

Now discuss what helicopters do and explain that they are a useful means of transportation. For example, our forest service uses helicopters as do firefighters, police, emergency medical transporters, and our government. Helicopters are a big help in the community and world.

The teacher can also discuss how a helicopter flies such as the vertical (up and down) take off and landing and how it hovers motionless as well as can fly forward, backward, and sideways. Ask the children if the helicopter takes off like an airplane?

Art:

Color a variety of printable coloring pages that are of planes, jet, and helicopters.

EnchantedLearning.com and ArtietheAirplane.com both have great printable coloring pages.

Ask the children if they would like to display their work in the art area for the week and then show them the area they can hang their work in.

Library Area:

This area should be filled with books and tapes about planes, helicopters, and even jets. Posters and display items are great to have in this area as well to give the children more visual aides and enhance the print-rich environment.

Sources

Oriental Trading Gliders: https://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?Ne=90000&sp=true&Ntk=all&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&cm_re=TOP-_-ED-_-ED&N=380659&tabId=Everyday&requestURI=viewEndecaCategory&categoryFromSearch=true&rd=gliders