After our field experience to both the military and commercial airport in October, we came back so excited about all our new learning. I told the children it was time to find ways to share this new learning with others. They could share their learning in any way they chose - as long as it related in some way to their field experience and demonstrated something new they learned.

We worked on and off for 7 weeks on these projects. Enjoy!

Bhakti and Rhiley's iMovie



Maddox created a miniature airport:



Sidney, Haley Grace, and Bhakti created the tunnel that is used for baggage security checks.



Carmen, Zainab, and Sydney made an "Airport Puppet Show" to discuss different facts that they learned.



Anna and Cami also made a baggage security check for the check-in desk.




Ryan and Judah made "Airport Monopoly"

Yujin and Grace made a flight puzzle and a flight matching game

Axel made a digital book about the military airport

Elijah and Abby made a flight board game "Plane Crash" and they also made a digital book "Planes and Beyond"

Kaylea and Bryant used Garage Band to make up their own song about airplanes.

Zavion made a parachute

Julia Karen made an iMovie about our field experience

I'm so impressed with these projects that the kids worked so hard on. We had a great variety, and they all did a great job presenting them to their friends.

Flight Expert & Paper Airplanes

On Thursday, September 29, we had one of the students' parents come in to share some of her own experiences with flight. She had just been on a commercial flight so she shared some pictures and videos of the airplane, the airport, and even the plane taking off. She had a few books about flight that she shared with the class and even showed us a poster of many different kinds of airplanes.

After that, she was taught us how to make a really neat paper airplane! She walked us through the different steps.

Some of us even decorated the airplanes we made.

After that, we got to go outside and test our airplanes.

 We had so much fun!

Fact Books

After choosing a new topic, its important to dedicate a space for the kids to document their questions and new learning as they go throughout each learning experience. It could be as simple as a folder or some stapled sheets of paper, or you could do something bigger. If I really had the funds for it, I'd purchase a class set of Bare Books but instead, we use sheets of poster board (folded in half) and 12x18 paper on the inside.

Step One: Paint the outside of the poster board (the kids LOVE this part!)

Step Two: Decorate the front of the fact book with things relating to the chosen topic.

Step Three: Hang in the classroom and add in pages as needed!

Examples of things that have already been included in our fact books:

Publishing our Class Web

The children were super proud of their small group webs. Our next step is to join up all the wonderful thoughts and ideas from these into one large class web.
We sat down as a group and mapped it out on a white board:

Going through this process helps me see where their interests lie and what sort of experiences I need to set up for them in Phase II. I can tell from this web they have a lot of interest in flying animals and airports/motorized aircraft.

The next step is to get the children's help in publishing and displaying this web so that we can continuing adding to it throughout the project study the next few months. 

Flight Expert: Colonel Klaaren

On Friday, October 7, Anna's grandfather, Colonel Klaaren came to our classroom to share with us his experience with flight while he was in the Air Force and to show us his drone.

Showing us videos of different fighter jets

He brought his flight helmet and showed us how he gets oxygen.

We went outside for a drone demonstration. 

All of us got to watch the drone go up 400 feet!

Colonel Klaaren is showing us how he can see what the drone sees through his iPhone screen.

Watching the drone take off.

Here is the video that the drone took of us:

Here are two photos the drone took of us while it was launching:

We had a great time learning with Colonel Klaaren!

Flight Expert: Colonel Redman

On November 16, we had the privilege of hosting Colonel Redman.  He graduated from the US Air Force Academy and spent his entire career flying bomber jets, eventually retiring as a full-bird Colonel a few years ago.  His family has lived at various points around the country, and now live in Prattville. Colonel Redman has a PhD from Duke University and currently teaches at the Air War College at Maxwell.

He focused on answering 3 main questions we had during his visit:

1. What does an Air Force pilot do (vs a commercial pilot)?

2. What is it like to be a pilot?

3. How do you become a pilot in the Air Force?

He showed us his flight suits - and explained why they are two different colors

He had a few videos to show us - one of the stealth bomber in flight

He showed us the flight helmet he wears when flying trainer and fighter jets:

We also got a chance to try on his flight gloves.

The kids did a great job documenting their new learning and following up with some of the questions they had developed prior to his visit.

Colonel Redman demonstrated the importance of G-suits and centrifugal force. 

Here are his G-suit pants.

Before he left, the whole class got to see all the items he brought.