The next thing I was thinking about is, what else? In terms of philosophy, I've always felt that "student enrichment" is anything that a teacher can bring to the classroom that can benefit a student. Past experiences, skills, ideas all work to "round out" the education of a child. There need not be any direct connection to a particular curriculum -- as long as kids are benefiting and learning something about "life", I can't see how a teacher can go wrong...
For me growing up, one of the many life lessons I learned came from my interest in flying. My Dad was a pilot, aircraft mechanic, and someone who actually built and flew his own airplane in the 1960s (which is still flying today). As I kid I loved flying with my dad, and some of my mechanical interests and aptitude came under his guidance, and started with model airplanes. Now for kids today, who can play video games or use P
C software to design and simulate powered flight, they might see building models as a bit retro... However, a lot of the skills required are transferable to many other disciplines, and all students can benefit. But before we got to building, we needed to understand the basics.
We covered the following in preparation for the model to arrive:
- flight axis: yaw, pitch, and roll
- flight controls: aileron, elevator, rudder
- parts of an airplane: fuselage, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer, wing (leading and trailing edge)
- basic principles of lift
- basic principles of pressure (IE "air always flows from high pressure to low pressure")
- dihedral and multihedral wings
- airfoil design
- weight vs. thrust, and centre of gravity
The rationale behind this, was that when the model kit finally arrived, students would understand the importance of workmanship, light weight, and flight controls. If I were to say, "the leading edge of that wing rib needs to be tapered a bit more", they would know what I was talking about.
In early September, I set about trying to find a balsa flying model that was simple enough for first-timers to build, but was sufficiently complex to allow actual powered flight with an airfoil providing lift -- not the "powered glide" that most simple balsa models are. 
Surprisingly enough, I found what I was looking for on eBay... and amazingly, I found the actual model kit I built and flew 25 years ago. It's a Guillow's Lancer, and still has "Copyright, 1966" on the plans. Some real nostalgia here folks! And all for $5.99... The construction of the kit requires the following tools:
- cork board large enough to lay out the 18" wingspan
- wax paper
- straight pins
- sandpaper balsa glue
- x-acto knives
- model aircraft "dope"
I was able to find all of this "stuff" at home or at a Brandon Hobby store, and after some cutting and gluing practice for all students, we started building...
You can see from the two pictures to date that assembly has gone along quite quickly -- the vertical and horizontal stabilizers are built, the main wing leading and trailing edges are finished and the ribs installed, and the students here are working on the second half of the fuselage. In the next class, we will need to "set the dihedral" of the main wing to create a stable airfoil. As this is a multihedral design, we will need to do this in stages. Once the angle has been set, balsa stringers connecting the wing ribs together will be glued in place, and will maintain the correct shape. After that, the fuselage halves will be glued together, and the plane will be ready for covering -- with tissue paper! Stay tuned!
And some vocabulary stuff!
