Gliders Roundup

In a previous post, we explored gliders and paper airplanes. If you search for preschool gliders, well, you can see from the image above pretty much the only kid of glider you will discover so I am going to sift through the furniture ads and pictures of cute Australian sugar gliders to find some flying machines you and your preschooler can make.

Straw Gliders
This is a nice description of the gliders we make in Messy Fingers with a bit of good explanation at the end as to why this flies.

Essentially the two circles help to channel the air and create lift. What happens if the two circles are the same size? Does it matter which way you throw the glider - small circle or big circle first?

Egg Carton Glider
This is a really cool glider made from a foam egg carton. There is no explanation at that site as to how or why it flies the way it does. It is presented more as a craft project, but the template is great.

Is the penny necessary?  What would happen if you left it out or added two pennies?

Helicopters
This was a very colorful and detailed explanation of how to make these gliders.  Here is a better explanation of the science, but with only two colors.

Does the length of the wings matter to the helicopter?  If you made them shorter or longer what happens?

Paper Gliders

This week in our preschool science program, we played with gliders at the library. Most of the parents first thought of paper airplanes when they read the topic but we didn't make a single plane, we made gliders.

Paper airplanes are fairly tricky to fold and most preschoolers have not developed the skills to make a nice sharp crease or to fold symmetrically. Honestly I know many older kids and some adults who can't do those things either. Yet both are really important to paper airplanes.

But gliders, now that is different story.
One of the gliders we made is called a ring-wing or annular glider. It is a super easy glider to make and a tough one to fly.

Here is a short YouTube video on how to make and fly this. It takes about a minute and a half to watch and he makes the glider and shows you how to fly it. For those of you who were at Messy Fingers, you will recognize how he makes it curved.

Give this a try with different kinds of paper and see what flies best!