Project 1: woodcraft f-18 kit.
These kits slot together like puzzles so I thought they may be easier to try to start with than an air fix kit and they have less fiddley pieces. Although the instructions are purely picture based with numbered parts which did resulting a minor error putting two pieces in the wrong way up it it was also simple to fix as there's no glue involved the only minor mishap was my 3 1/2 year old accidentally breaking some of the missiles that book onto the wings off as the books were quiet small and weaker than other bits but nothing super glue won't fix once painted it won't be noticeable.
My son was able to follow all the instructions himself and it kept his interest from start to finish, it took 6 hours to complete without painting it above all he was so proud he finished his jet.
We are using this as a design and technology project so my son wrote about what he did.
Aim-build woodcraft kit using instructions included and end up with a completed f18 to paint. Method- how he made it. Conclusion-what problems he had and how problems got fixed, anything he'd do differently next time.
This project has encouraged concentration. Learning to follow the instructions but problems solving skills and thinking when the instructions have come up a bit short. Creativeness, artistic skills, practise of fine motor skills painting tricky small areas. So lots of transferable skills from a hands on making project and at the end he has a cool jet model for his room :)
Other projects we have planned are a wood craft helicopter kit which may be a bit trickier as its a smaller model and a 14 in one robot making kit this is aimed at his age group from maplin with parts that click together to make 14 different variations of robots that then run using battery power. Hopefully I going to find some further slightly harder electronics kits and some science based kits to move onto as the year goes on.
