Paper Airplane Learning

Okay so the district electrician came to my room today to mount my projector in the ceiling. So we had to be out of our room for 3 hours. Yes, 3 hours. Luckily, an hour of it was lunch and specialty and the weather was beautiful. So what do you do with 29 first graders without a classroom?

 Paper Airplane Learning!   

I showed them all how to make a very simple paper airplane. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to do this or not but most of them caught on very quickly. And those that could do it helped the ones that couldn't. My 20 boys were in 7th Heaven. They couldn't believe their teacher was actually teaching them how to make paper airplanes let alone fly them. Little did they know there would be learning involved. After everyone had an airplane, they had to think of a number from 10-99 and write it on their plane with their name.

Then I explained the rules:

• Stand in two lines facing each other. 
• No flying until I say "go". 
• Everyone picks up an airplane.
• Everyone fills out the place value chart with the number on the plane.
• Get ready to fly it again.
• Repeat. (We did it 7 times.)

 Here was the BIGGEST rule:

• No paper airplanes allowed except when I (teacher) say. (That was so I won't have paper airplanes everywhere after today and paper airplanes are not allowed in our school unless the teacher is using them for teaching purposes.)

We had a BLAST! We stayed out of our room and we practiced our place value. Who knew paper airplanes could be educational?

Here are the instructions for folding a very simple paper airplane.

This is the recording sheet we used.

Click HERE to download the recording sheet.

My brain is just a going with all the other subjects you could do this with: contractions, compound words, fractions, number sentences, spelling or sight words, antonyms, synonyms, homophones, blends, just to name a few. You wouldn't even need a fancy recording sheet, just a piece of paper with numbers to record your answers. You can even do it in your room, just line up on opposite sides of the room and fly away.

So if you ever get kicked out of your room and need a fun learning activity, here's one you could try. I know my kiddos want to do it again and again and again.

Thanks for stopping by!