Butterflies

Our butterflies have emerged and they have inspired us 

to create our own butterflies.

Old fashioned clothespegs and crepe streamers.

No glue, no scissors needed.

Choose your colours, lay them out and rip.

Squeeze them into the opening of the clothespeg,

squishing them tight so they stay in.

Decide how long your wings will be.

You can rip them to make them shorter

or fold them under.

Next, decorate.

Draw designs on the wings,

use the hot glue gun to add some bling

or just draw a happy face.

Ta da!

Time to fly!

Goodbye Passenger Plane Hello SAR Part 1

We were very lucky this week to have a tour to the air base to see the 

Search and Rescue aircraft.

 We went to tour the Cormorant helicopter

 and the Buffalo airplane.

Four pilots toured us through both and answered all our questions.

I gave the children a little booklet to record what they saw.

We saw how they turn the plane and helicopters, the bubble (observation) windows,

the seat, the wings, and the propellers. 

Back at school I took down our passenger airplane,

I didn't want to cut into that cardboard,

found another box

and started to build the Buffalo.

The box isn't pretty but we like to reuse as often as possible.

Inside is a raised platform which the children had to walk across to get to 

the pilot's seat.

I didn't get a picture of it but there is a ramp at the end of the platform.

That was a challenge for us, during our tour, to climb up the big ramp 

to get inside the plane.

Observation windows are located on both sides of our plane

just like the Buffalo.

As the children played the talk of 'where are the wings?' occurred.

Luckily one of the fathers works at the base and is very

familiar with planes.

I was struggling how we would attach the wings to the sides of the plane,

and still give the children space to play around it.

Then our 'technician' reminded me that the wings on a Buffalo

go across the top of the plane.

Which was brilliant because they will also help to stabilize the box.

As the dad worked on the wings, the children grabbed our basket of tools

and got to work.

Love this picture of how the girl inside is watching her dad work

and the boy outside is keeping an eye on what is happening.

By the end of the morning we finished work of putting the tail wing on

 and propeller placed at the nose.

Stay tuned.

Building Our Airport

The beginning of our airport started
with a bench and a clipboard.

There was one other piece of equipment that I was excited to share.

A four foot length of roller conveyor.

The children were fascinated with it too.

They spent the first morning sending the suitcases across it.

 We used this opportunity to talk about packing for a trip.  

Where are we going?  What would we need?  What would we like to take?

Using the suitcase worked their problem solving skills and
fine motor skills, trying to close the latches.

 But the excitement grew as the children discovered that the cases travel across the rollers very fast.

We ended up with a box on the floor at the end to catch the cases.

  Day two, after our first tour of the airport we set up the luggage x-ray machine.

I found photos on line of suitcase being xrayed and attached it to 

the side of our machine.

At the end of the morning after the children left, I added a few more pieces of equipment.

A computer, tickets, baggage tags and
a scale was include to weigh the suitcases.

It's ready for the children to use tomorrow.

Although I'm concerned how well the x-ray machine (box) will hold up.

Shape Patterns

Last week I set up this provocation for the children to explore shapes.

They created a variety of designs from simple to complex.

They were encouraged to label their design.

Then document it with the camera.

A favourite activity.

It encouraged them to make more and more designs.

I printed their photos and left them on the table and encouraged 

others to try to copy the designs.

This became a child driven activity rather than teacher.