These airplane activities for kids with free printables have been a huge hit!

I wanted to be sure to share! 

We are preparing our kids for their first trip to Disney World, which includes their first experience on an airplane. 

I want to be able to provide them with as many airplane activities and experiences as possible before our trip, in hopes that it will all help them.

 

Airplane Activities for Kids with FREE Printables

Air Travel Match Up

The kiddos will match the air travel figures with pictures.  

The In the Sky Toob has been in our learning time room for a few weeks now.  

Dinomite and Bulldozer haven't been able to keep their hands off of it, asking to play with the figures at least three times a week.  I'm loving their enthusiasm and excitement!

Source:  I created the printable for this activity. The Airplane Unit Printable Pack is free. For your copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

Greater Than/Less Than Miles Per Hour

It's always fun to discover just how fast an airplane travels through the sky.  

In this activity the kiddos will compare mph speeds of several different airplanes.  

They will use the glass beads to mark their answers on each card.

Source:  Jason and I created the printable for this activity. The Airplane Unit Printable Pack is free.  For your free copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

Parts of an Airplane

The kiddos should have a blast learning about all of the different parts of an airplane with these nomenclature cards.  

There's just so much to learn!

Source:  These cards are available for free from The Pinay Homeschooler.

Transportation Timeline Facts Match Up

The Montessori Elementary curriculum emphasizes time in a many of the lessons etc.  

Time lines are very much a part of presentation, instruction, and exploration.  

This aspect of the curriculum has seemed quite overwhelming to me as I try to prepare for next year.  

I thought our theme for the week would provide a great trial run to see how the kiddos respond to time lines and if I'm able to make them. 

I'm very pleased with how this time line turned out.  

It's divided into three parts:  air, land, and water transportation.  

Picture cards are glued to the time line, which is separated by decades and includes time from 1500 A.D. to 2000 A.D.  

I had wanted to include more time, but my living room is only so big.  

This week we'll only be focusing on air travel, but in weeks to come we'll refer back to the time line to discuss land and water travel.

The kiddos will match up explanation cards to picture cards on the timeline.  The explanation cards have a small picture on them that is the control.

Source:  This printable is part of the Transportation Unit Montessori Printable Activities from Montessori Nature.  

The Glorious Flight

Keeping with our theme of the history of flight, The Glorious Flight will be on our shelves for the kiddos to read and enjoy!  

It's a fabulous book.  

I highly recommend it!

Paper Airplane Activity

An airplane unit wouldn't be complete without making a paper airplane.  

The kiddos will follow the directions to make their own.  

I'm guessing it will be more challenging than they think.  

Hopefully by the end of the week they'll be pros!

Source:  The printable for this activity was from Creative with Kids but is no longer available.

My First Airplane Ride Social Story

This activity involves finishing a social story that explains the step by step order of how things will go on a first flight.  

In the process of creating this story, I spoke with the airline we're flying with.  

I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  

You'd be amazed at how many new experiences are involved in flying for the first time.  

The book has 20 pages and only covers the actual flight, not the airport.  

For an airport Social Story, be sure to visit our Airport Preparation Activities for Kids With Free Printables

Airport Preparation Activities for Kids With Free Printables

The kiddos will read each page of the airplane social story (with assistance if needed), and find the picture that matches each page, gluing it above the text.  

Pictures are numbered to match page numbers as a control.  

When finished, the kiddos will be able to explain what will happen on our first flight and all flights afterward.  

I will be keeping a copy of the book to take along with us on our trip, just in case the kiddos forget what we've read about and become anxious.

To further continue our lesson about riding an airplane, we'll be watching Delta's In-flight Safety Video. 

Though we are not flying this airline, the video is quite similar to any live or video presentations you may see on a flight.  

The kiddos have watched the video once already.  It has brought up A LOT of questions.  I'm so glad we're taking the time to answer all of them now.  

For some of the kiddos, it had never occurred to them that an emergency could occur on a flight.  

When Bulldozer saw the air masks in the video, he thought we'd have to wear them the entire time we were on the flight.  

It's the little things that make the biggest difference when preparing for something like this. 

I can't imagine what the kiddos would have been like if they'd heard these instructions for the first time on the flight.

Source:  I created this printable.  My First Airplane Ride Social Story is free.  For your copy, click on the link at the bottom of this post.

(The My First Airplane Ride Story printable was created in Microsoft Publisher as a booklet.  You will notice that pages do not print out in order.  When printing is finished, fold pages in half, cut, and piece together the book.  Cut out pictures and then paste on the correct pages.)

The Noisy Airplane Ride

There are a lot of sensory lessons that go along with one's first airplane ride.  

The Noisy Airplane Ride is the perfect book to prepare kiddos for all of the noises they may hear.  

I was able to read this book with each kiddo individually first, and then we've read it together.  

Each kiddo had different questions and comments.  

I'm sure we'll read it many times before we leave on our trip. 

A Trip to the Airplane Museum

Last in this post, but first in our airplane adventures and studies, was a trip to the airplane museum!   The kiddos thoroughly enjoyed the experience (with a few behavior exceptions).  

Jason and I would have loved to stay longer reading the beautiful time line with pictures and models that covered the entire back wall of the museum.  It was pretty amazing.  

Perhaps when the kiddos are older.  

While we were there the kiddos were able to look at several airplanes and get some pretty cool hands on experience.

After the trip to the museum we headed to a restaurant to eat.  

It just so happened that the restaurant was right across the street from the local airport runway.  

Twice during our meal, an airplane flew right over our heads.  

We were able to watch it land from where we were sitting.  It was a pretty neat experience!

Since the creation of this unit study, we have created a new and updated resource about air vehicles. 

It includes all true-to-life images and such a variety of vehicles for children to enjoy.

Air Vehicles Printable Pack

Don't forget to grab your free printables by clicking the links below!

Airplane Unit Printable Pack

My First Airplane Ride Story

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