If you're planning on some air travel with your family this summer, take advantage of some fun and (mostly) free guides and activities featuring the history of aircraft, the science of flight...and paper airplanes!
Airplane-Themed Science, History, and Math Guides:
Science in Your Airplane Seat - Take this with you to do some science experiments at the airport and on the plane!
Legends of Flight - This is a free guide made for the IMAX movie, but it can be used as a stand-alone guide with some modifications. Best for 4th - 8th grade.
Celebrating a Century of Flight - A free guide from NASA about the history of flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration has a free aviation science guide for your elementary-learners.
Cornell University has a printable flight science toolkit full of experiments and activities.
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has a free Flight Adventures teaching guide for your 3rd - 5th graders. Be sure to check out their interactive activity here as well! (More interactive activities are featured below.)
As part of their Museum in a Box series, NASA has a free Wing Design teaching guide that features tie-ins with wildlife - birds!
The National Air and Space Museum has a free teacher's guide about the African American Pioneers in Aviation.
The Evergreen Museum offers free teaching packets that provide science, math, history, and art connections for K-6th graders. Be sure to check out their downloadable activities at the same link.
Identify parts of a plane, create a puzzle, identify flight maneuvers and more with this activity guide for early elementary learners.
This is not free, but we love Dover coloring books! This one features the airplanes of World War 1.
Math in Flight - This free 17-page downloadable booklet from the Air Force introduces high school students to math applications found in flight.
Download NASA's 129-page Aeronautics Educator's Guide with activities in science, math and technology.
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Movies:
Watch The Wright Brothers' Flying Machine (NOVA) and use this free activity guide for pre-and-post video discussion and extended activities.
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These instructions are for making paper airplane valentine cards, but it would be great to use for writing activities - especially for a reluctant writer!
Check out this free teaching guide to accompany The Kids' Paper Airplane book.
Your younger learners will enjoy these printable paper airplanes from Disney's Planes movie.
NASA teaches you how things fly with this printable paper airplane.
Check out math connections while making paper airplanes using this free Exploratorium printable.
Learn about the scientific method and how to apply it to paper airplanes with these activities.
Read more about the history of flight, use an interactive timeline, observe the history of flight in famous artwork and more on the Dream of Flight web site.
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Interactive Online Activities:
AMA Flight School has three interactive online games to help teach the principles of flight, flight dynamics, and the forces of flight.
Learn how things fly and design an airplane with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum! Find other interactive activities on their web site here.
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Incorporate your younger learners with these activities (linked from a free sample from Learnzy Preschool Curriculum).
Grab a free aircraft mini unit here.
For make-believe, you can print this great airport pretend-and-play kit!
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Check out Seymour Simon's Paper Airplane book from your local library to learn the physics and science of flight - and get more ideas for paper airplanes!
The Boy and the Airplane is a wordless book with a theme somewhat reminiscent of The Giving Tree.
Read To Fly: The Story of the Wright Brothers to learn about the Wright brothers. It begins with their childhood fascination with flight up to their successful flights of 1903.
How People Learned to Fly is a level 2 book from the Let's Read and Find Out science series. This book features the creative and sometimes wacky experiments people tried before the invention of the airplane.
The Glorious Flight tells the story of Louis Bleriot, who built a flying machine to cross the English Channel.
Flight, part of the Eyewitness Books series, provides a great photographic view of the history of flight as well as photos of the different types of aircraft used today. You can also grab a free teaching guide to use with the book (this teaching guide refers to "Flight" as "Flying Machine," which is how the book was previously published).
Download a printable Amelia Earhart reader here.
Happy Flying!
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