Spinning Blimp! Beginning-Level Paper Airplanes

April 1, 2018

Gr 1-5-Paper folding, with its reliance on intricate hand movements, benefits mightily from the additional content located on the Capstone 4D app. (Kids already use YouTube and other online sources to learn skills, whether it's clearing a dungeon in Minecraft or perfecting their foul shot.) In addition to being an ideal medium for demonstrating techniques, the videos on the app train readers to go back and forth between the text and the video. The video content is super granular, with as many as 16 steps per plane. Sidebars contribute aviation engineering facts and concepts, and a photo-but no video-shows the optimal grasp for launching each plane on its best, longest flight. Graph paper-patterned background gives the books a technical visual style, but steps laid out in a meandering order (likely meant to reinforce print concepts by requiring readers to follow a path of dotted lines) will be maddeningly counterintuitive to some folks. VERDICT The combination of text, photos, and videos make these projects nearly foolproof. A fine choice, especially if students can easily access the related app.

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