Early Years Aviators

Children in FS1 have been feeling very lucky lately with so many trips and exciting activities on offer…

After two weeks of studying different forms of transport, children hopped on board the school bus and headed over to the Nanyuki Airstrip. After talking, reading and singing about all the different types of transport on offer it was a truly meaningful experience for children to get hands on experience of their learning.

Children were absolutely captivated by the almost magical flying machines that they got to see and so many interesting questions came out of the trip like how they fly, or how far they can travel (children’s hypotheses ranged from the moon to the school!)

FS1 and FS2 were incredibly lucky to have Timmy Flowers, Head Pilot at Tropic Air, talk to them about his job, how helicopters work, and what they are used for. It was an incredibly valuable experience learning about which vehicles are used under which circumstances. They also got the chance to explore a small 4 seater aeroplane and how it is different from the helicopter; the children got to climb into both machines, sit where the pilots would, look at all the different dials and instruments, put on head phones and get a real feel for what it feels like to ride in these incredible flying machines!

While we were there we saw the difference in how a helicopter takes off and how an aeroplane does and how each differs in its movements: with the helicopter's ability to go straight up and even backwards.

Once back we discussed what the children learned and loved about the trip; everyone was so engaged and had so many different things they had noticed. It seems the trip has inspired quite a few future helicopter drivers, so watch this space Tropic Air…