An Air Transportation Week

I am not very good and have never been good with the "techie" stuff. While I do like cars, I am better with arts and other "stuff" such as nature. With the hardcore physics and "techie" topics, I struggle. It is also precisely when I first heard of the Airshow, I wanted to do an Air transport homeschool week just so that I can learn along with Dumpling too.

I want to take this opportunity to also add that if I were to get $5 for every time I hear someone say "you mean C can understand such a topic? I think it is much too hard for them!" , I think it would have made quite a substantial contribution to Dumpling's Uni fund by now. LOL. So to make it official, I will be collecting $5 for Dumpling's Uni fund from this moment henceforth from all of you kind souls out there. :D

This blog is meant to share ideas and to encourage parents like you to homelearn with your kids. Anything is possible for a homelearning unit, you just need to dissect it down to a suitable level and to research a bit on the web. Do not over analyse especially if you have a preschooler like I do, just read and learn along. If your child is not engaged or struggles with it, trust me, you will know. :) Then skip over that section and work on other stuff.

Frankly, I searched high and low for a printable homeschooling unit on Airplanes and it did not yield me many suitable options. I saw a lot of "Transportation" printables but nothing just on planes until I saw this by Hands of a Child. So, I decided to read a lot with Dumpling, work on selected "Transportation Pack" printables and then do a lapbook with the unit from Hands of  a Child.

Half of the books we used (I accidentally returned some to the library and hence this is only half of what we read)

We got these printables as part of the Transportation pack from Homeschool Creations. This is part of a 2-part download so please ensure you have downloaded both

I really like this exercise. It reinforces "left" and "right" and uses a bit of critical thinking as the child needs to look at the direction the vehicle is facing. I always thought that Dumpling is quite sure of her left and right until I did this exercise. So, this was a great reinforcement for her.

Number sequencing using puzzle with a "bi-plane" (see! I learnt something too!)

The below is from Hands of a Child. The lapbook elements download came with 10 activities and frankly, it is a bit technical in terms of details. While I did not mind that as it is a good way to build up Dumpling's general knowledge (different parts of an airplane and its functions, differences between a helicopter and an airplane, etc.), I wished that it had more creative stuff in it - craft or even extending to Math.

How the lapbook looks after piecing the elements together

A few nights before the Airshow in the official Airshow Tee :)

One of the first few static displays we saw

That Sunday morning was really breezy and cool so it was a perfect for such an outing!

Dumpling busy taking photos of her own

We were queuing to sit in the cockpit of...

An Apache! (Dumpling chose it)

I thought she would fuss about with so many new faces as she often takes a while to warm up to strangers

But she was absolutely thrilled about sitting in the cockpit!

   

In fact, she did more than ok...

She was ecstatic with all the buttons and I secretly think she really likes pilots! (Ha ha ha ha)

See what I mean? Check out her smile!

OK, the pilots there were really great with young kids so kudos to them. They were patient and ever so obliging. This particular pilot had to listen to Dumpling's sharing of the difference between a helicopter and an airplane. lol

And with a click, she launched a missile?!?

She was having such a ball of a time that she refused to get off

Thumbs up to a well organised event, a team of really great "gor gors" (as Dumpling calls them) and of couse the amazing air show!

:) This was an air show by the Australian Roulettes. They were really good!