Flight Study: Giant Bird Man
Kindergarten, Zoltan Sarda

In Room 1, the students are studying flight. Each child studies a bird, an insect and a human made flying machine. Part of the unit includes beginning ideas about ratio and proportion. As part of their bird projects, the children create life size models of their birds. One whole class activity is to make a full sized paper model of what human beings would look like if they were capable of muscle powered flight. They would need to have ten-foot long arms to provide enough lift, a chest as big as a barrel to provide enough muscle power, a head the size of an apple, legs the size of broomsticks, and hollow bones for weight.

The students used large pieces of butcher paper and worked in teams to measure the wings, the chest, the arms and the head. This was a first use of standard measurement using one-foot rulers. Measuring end to end with the rulers and keeping track of the number of total feet is a difficult concept for five and six year-olds. The pieces were decorated by the groups and assembled by the class. The finished bird man was hung up in the hallway for all to see.