Aviation Unit

First...this picture has absolutely nothing to do with aviation or the rest of this post....but the trees in our back yard are so pretty right now that I had to take a picture...and I am sharing it since I have not taken any pictures about the following topic:

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We are studing aviation this week, and will continue as long as there is interest. Our library doesn't have the best selections....a lot of books I came across that looked wonderful weren't available, and someone out there checked out every single book on Amelia Earhart....but I did get a few good ones.....

• The Jet Alphabet Book and The Airplane Alphabet Book both by Jerry Pallotta. We love all Jerry Pallotta Alphabet books and almost all of our units include at least one.



• The Glorious Flight: by Alice Provensen. My boys LOVE this story. It is about Louis Bleriot and the first flight across the English Channel.



• Will and Orv by Walter A Schultz. This is a short biography on the Wright Brothers. It kept the boys' interest well, and was written on a level Rylan could read.



• Glenn L Martin: Boy Conqueror of the Air by Ruth Harley. These are our new favorite biography series (The Childhood of Famous Americans) We read one on Harry Truman and this library trip Rylan was pulling them out all over the biography section and finally landed on this one; since none of us knew who he was and he was in aviation we brought it home. So far it is very good.



• All Aboard Airplanes by Frank Evans



• Dover's History of Flight Coloring Book. I really like the Dover coloring books. And it keeps their hands busy and less wiggling around when we do our read alouds. So far they've done the Wright Flyer and the Bleriot XI.


• The Value of Patience: The Story of the Wright Brothers (a ValueTale)We all really like this series too. We've read a lot: Lincoln, Ben Franklin, Louis Pasteur....and all have gone over really well.

Today they labeled the parts of an airplane. Homeschool Share has a unit on The Glorious Flight and has some printables avialable. I am not feeling like lapbooking right now, so we probably won't use a lot of them...If I get industrious we might make these models. Once we study all the parts and such I will let them have free reign over craft materials to see if they can invent their own model airplane. We will do some mapping as we study different pilots and important flights; such as the English Channel and the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a work in progress since I am trying to let go a bit and let them do the leading....