1 Ready for take-off
CHILD-INITIATED
Explore air transport through role-play.
Resources
Indoors (preferably with a view of the outdoors): Check-in area - tickets, boarding cards, passports, luggage labels, suitcases, hand luggage, conveyor belt (cardboard boxes covered with wall-lining paper), scanner.
Lounge area - snack bar, coffee tables, chairs, newspapers, travel brochures and magazines, tape recording of flight announcements and tape recorder.
Outdoors Runway - luggage trolley, lights, runway markings, aeroplane (made from, for example, wooden hollow blocks and planks) with cockpit, plastic food trays, appropriate uniform hats.
Also provide aerial photographs of sea, clouds, towns, countryside and mountains.
Play suggestions
* Encourage the children to share any experiences of flying they may have.
* Support them in planning holidays or other trips and provide any additional resources.
* Talk about the sounds that can be heard as the aeroplane engines start, and about the imaginary views from the aeroplane windows while it is in flight (you can use the aerial photographs as a prop).
* Serve aeroplane food and give safety demonstrations.
* Talk to the children about destinations, focusing on their own travel experiences as a starting point.
Possible learning outcomes
* Talks about own experiences and listens as others talk about theirs.
* Asks questions to further knowledge about air travel.
* Represents own experiences and imagines new experiences.
* Explores a range of different roles - for example, pilot, fight attendant and air traffic controller.
* Interacts with others, negotiating roles and discussing imaginative ideas.
* Understands writing as a means of communication and attempts to read own marks back.
2 On a wing
ADULT-LED
Help children to learn about flight by making model aeroplanes with them.
Planned learning intention
To experiment with designs and materials to produce a model that 'flies'
Adult:child ratio 1:4
Resources
Commercially produced model gliders with instructions, pictures and photographs of aircraft, model aeroplanes, paper, card, craft foam pieces, balsa wood, scissors, pencils, sticky tape, video camera, a large area (away from other activities) where children can try to fly their model aeroplanes.
Activity content
* Look at and talk about the pictures and model aircraft with the children.
Discuss features such as wings, tails, propellers and engines.
* Build the glider with the children, drawing their attention to the diagram and instructions and encouraging them to help you to follow these.
Ask children to try out the glider.
* Encourage the children to make their own gliders, helicopters or aeroplanes and to experiment with different techniques such as folding paper, taping wings to a body and slotting strips of card into slits in another piece of card.
* Discuss the children's ideas and designs. Suggest that they try mixing materials such as card and balsa wood.
* Encourage children to 'test fly' their aeroplanes in turn and to make any alterations to them that may be needed.
* Measure and compare the distances of the flights.
* When children are happy with a final design, make a video recording of their planes 'in flight' and encourage them to talk about how they have made them.
* Use the video recording and 'interviews' as a chance to reflect, with children, on the activity and also share it with parents.
Stepping stones
* Children with little experience will explore the construction materials, understand that tools can be used for a purpose and may begin to explore these purposes in solitary play.
* Children with some experience will experiment with ways of joining materials. They will use the materials for a purpose and talk about their ideas.
* Children with more experience will select appropriate tools for a task and plan. They may modify their designs in progress and in response to the 'test flights'. They will talk about what has and hasn't worked and may offer suggestions about why.
Extension ideas
* Continue to provide appropriate resources in the technology workshop for the children to pursue their interest in flight and continue to provide a designated safe area for 'test flights'.
* Make 'runways' and encourage the children to aim to land their aircraft as near as possible to the spot marked 'x'.
* Display children's aeroplanes on a mobile suspended in the technology area.
* Take air travel a step further by organising a trip to the moon. (See the back of the Nursery Topics poster.) 3 Up, up and away
ADULT-LED
Use hot air balloon travel as a starting point for a writing focus.
Planned learning intention
To use writing as a means of communication
Adult:child ratio 1:4
Resources
Helium-filled balloons; small, plastic fromage frais pots (washed and with string threaded through the lip on opposite sides); sticky labels printed with the address of the setting; small wooden or plastic beads; pipe cleaners; notepad; pens and pencils; photographs and pictures of hot air balloons.
Activity content
* Show the children the photographs/pictures and the balloons.
* Explain how the plastic pots can be used as baskets and make a passenger using pipe cleaners for the body and limbs and a bead for the head.
* Encourage the children to make their own character doll (keeping these as light as possible!); to put this securely into a 'basket'; to write a note from their doll and to put it in the basket. Ask them to read back their marks to you.
* Stick an address label on each basket and tie the strings to the base of the balloon.
* Let the children release their balloons outside and encourage them to watch until they disappear.
Stepping stones
* Children with little experience will make random marks on the paper and experiment with mark-making tools. They may distinguish between writing and drawing.
* Children with some experience will ascribe meaning to their marks.
* Children with more experience will refine their marks, perhaps producing strings of letter shapes. They will 'read' back their marks.
Extension ideas
* You may receive replies from people who find the notes - read these with the children and, if you know where the basket was found, find it on a map.
* Make a larger model of a hot air balloon in the setting and start a messaging service encouraging children to write notes to each other and put them in the basket. Empty the basket and distribute notes daily.
