Boats and planes

Last week you may have noticed your child bringing home a paper boat or plane.  Some of the kids were interested in learning how to make paper boats and planes so we found easy videos to follow the instructions.  Why are we doing this you may ask?  One of the four frames of learning in our Kindergarten program is all about Problem Solving and Innovating.   These two activities provided the children with some excellent opportunities to problem solve.  The kids wanted to know if the boats would float.  We put them in water and found that they did float. Some kids put objects in their boats to see if they continued to float, which they did.  Then the students began to notice that the longer their boat sat in the water, the paper began to get soggy, or as one student commented, " it feels like material ".  The activity quickly changed directions from simply seeing if their boat could float to figuring out how they could protect the bottom of the boat so it wouldn't get soggy.  They talked about it and came up with the solution of putting a piece of cardboard on the bottom of the boats.  We found some cardboard and the kids tapped it to the bottom and discovered that it worked!  They used their technological problem solving skills in the design process, but the whole time they were having fun!  This is the learning through play that the Kindergarten program is all about.

Some other students were into making paper airplanes and seeing how far they could fly.  Some kids discovered that their planes did not fly straight. Upon further research they learned that flaps needed to be added to the plane wings to allow for continuous air flow over the ✈️.  The kids are learning the basics about aerodynamics without even knowing it.  Love it!