This is part of my 15 minute Focus series. Kids learn a little about aerodynamics, and practice scissor skills and folding skills making a paper helicopter.

Objective: Children can give an example of how things fly better if they are designed to fly well.

Safety Note: this activity involves dropping paper from somewhere high and watching it flutter down. An ideal situation is if you have a loft or stair landing with railings where the child can be safe while dropping a paper and watching it flutter. If you don’t have that, consider whether it could be safe for them to climb onto a chair or table (remind them this is a today-only opportunity!) or a ladder.

Supplies:

• scrap paper and paper clips
• for simple flyers: scissors, glue sticks; 2 strips of paper per child (copier paper works better than constrution paper, I use strips about an inch wide and 8 inches long, but test to find what works best for you). On half of the strips, draw lines where they will cut for the ring flyers – see below),
• for helicopters: scissors, tape (optional); paper templates (print 1 for every 3 kids – that will give you a few extras so if someone makes a cutting mistate). Cut each apart into four separate helicopter templates
• Optional: a wind tube, snow cone cups

Aerodynamics?

Try the Bobby Dropper experiment. (I learned it on Mystery Science, a truly excellent science education program.) Slide a bobby pin (or a paper clip) onto a flat piece of paper. Slide another bobby pin (or paper clip) onto another piece of paper then crumple that paper into a ball around the pin. Climb up high and drop the flat paper and the ball of paper. Do they fall at the same speed? Is there anything different about how they fall?

Then ask kids to think of things that float on the wind (leaves, snowflakes, feathers, maple seeds, dandelion seeds, plastic bags, frisbees, glider planes). Think of their shapes.

Optional: How can you change the shape of a piece of paper so it is better at floating on the wind? Cut or fold the paper, test it against the crumpled ball. Tweak and repeat as many times as desired.

Simple Flyers

These are good for age 4 and up.

Make ring flyers. On one end of the strip, cut a slit halfway down, on the other end cut halfway up. (Some kids will just cut an end right off. That’s OK – just cut a new slit about an inch from the end.) Then roll the strip up and tuck the two slits together. When you drop it, it will spin as it fluttesr down. (Image from Orlando Science Museum)

Make maple seed flyers:

1. Take a strip of paper. Add glue to each end.
2. Fold it and stick the two ends together.
3. Now hold it up and add glue to the inside of the loop, halfway round.
4. Push that glue down into the “V” of the ends. Pinch together.
5. Spread the wings.
6. Let it fly! (Hold it so it is lying on its side when you let go.) It will spin.

Paper Helicopters

These are best for age 5 and up.

Show the kids how there are solid lines and dotted lines. Tell them it is important we only cut the solid lines, NOT the dotted ones.

Have them cut along the solid lines. Then show them how to fold along the solid lines to make a “helicopter” shape. You may find it helpful to tape up the fold at Z.

This illustration is from NASA and you can find more instructions at that link. Climb to any high place, and drop the helicopter – it will twirl to the ground. You can have them try fastening a paper clip on the bottom (near letter Z) to see if that changes how well it twirls.

Wind Tube – extension

We have a wind tube, a clear plastic tube mounted on a fan. The kids place something on the fan and watch it blow up in the air and out the top of the tube. (Learn how to make a wind tube.) So we tested all our flyers in that. We also cut snow cone cups in a spiral shape, and flew them as well.

Song: (tune: Row Your Boat)
Fly, Fly. Fly Away. Fly Away from Me;
Fly Fly Fly away, then float back down to me.

Book: Rosie Revere, Engineer by Beaty. Or Izzy Gizmo by Jones.

Find more ideas on the Science of Flight.