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  • Explore Topics

    Explore topics

    Discover 24 topics for reading, exploring, and learning about our world. You'll find great fiction and nonfiction books, hands-on activities, writing ideas, and kid-friendly websites and apps for each topic.

    Visit the Explore Topics Overview
    • Explore Topics Overview
    • Art and Artists
    • Bugs, Birds and Animals
    • Builders and Buildings
    • Civics and Our Government
    • Cooking and Food
    • Detectives and Explorers
    • Dinosaurs
    • Family and Community
    • Flight
    • Folktales, Fairy Tales and Myths
    • Geography, Travel and Cultures
    • Heroes and Superheroes
    • Homes and Habitats
    • Inventions and Inventors
    • Math and Measuring
    • Money
    • Music and Musicians
    • Nature: Our Green World
    • Oceans, Rivers and Ponds
    • Poetry
    • Sports and the Olympics
    • Stars, Planets and the Night Sky
    • Time and Time Travel
    • Weather
  • Toolkits & Guides

    Toolkits and Guides

    Explore our free, downloadable toolkits and guides to enrich summer and afterschool learning at home or through youth programs. You'll find booklists, hands-on activities, and links to multimedia resources that extend children's learning about the world.

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    • Toolkits & Guides Overview
    • Weather Wonders
    • Tune In!
    • Bird Buddies
    • Space Rangers
    • River Rangers
    • Trailblazers
    • We Are Storytellers
    • Our Democracy
  • Active Reading

    Active Reading

    Reading together is a conversation! Encourage questions, make predictions, visualize the story, and talk about new words you encounter as you read together.

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    • Active Reading Overview
    • Reading Aloud
    • Choosing and Using Kids’ Books
    • Reading Fluency
    • Vocabulary and Word Play
    • Parent Tips for Reading, Writing, and Learning
  • Writing
  • Background Knowledge
  • Summer Learning

DIY Science Camp: Flight

girl throwing a paper airplane
Many kids are fascinated by airplanes, helicopters, parachutes, and boomerangs (do they really come back?). We've collected a fleet of fun activities plus lots of great fiction and nonfiction books to help you learn together about flight and flying machines.

Download sample activity schedule and books >

  • Hands-on activities
  • Fiction and nonfiction books
  • Summer writing
  • Recommended websites for kids
  • Recommended apps for kids

Hands-on activities

a devil's kite paper airplane
Devil’s Kite
photos of homemade boomerangs
Indoor Boomerang I
photo of a homemade paper airplane launcher
Paper Airplane Launcher
drawing of two children playing with a rotocopter
Roto-Copter
photo of a boy assembling a loopy plane
Paper Hoop Flyer
cartoon drawing of a girl dropping a homemade parachute
Parachute Drop

Fiction and nonfiction books

cover of "Air Show" showing a plane flying and other planes on the ground below
Air Show
cover of "Flight: A Pop-up Book of Aircraft" showing different kinds of planes
Flight: A Pop-Up Book of Aircraft
cover of "Fly High" showing a pilot in a prop plane
Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman
cover of "Flying Machines" showing different kinds of planes
Flying Machine (Eyewitness)
cover of "Flying Machines" showing a child in front of a prop plane
Flying Machines
cover of "Kids Paper Air Plane" showing two airplanes flying
Kids' Paper Airplane Book
illustrated cover of "Kite Flying" showing child running with a dragon kite
Kite Flying
cover of "Look to the Stars" showing man in space suit with edge of Earth behind him
Look to the Stars
cover of "The Adventures of Sparrowboy" showing young boy with his hands on his hips
The Adventures of Sparrowboy
cover of "The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont" showing a crowd and planes in front of the eiffel tower
The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont
cover of "wind flyers" showing boy and dog on the wing of a prop plane
Wind Flyers
Zephyr Takes Flight

Find more books about Flight >

Summer writing

  • A World Without Flight Comic Book

Recommended websites for kids

  • Alex's Paper Airplanes
  • Forces of Flight
  • How Do Wings Work?
  • Let's Go to Mars
  • Flight Adventure's Flight School
  • How Things Fly

Recommended apps for kids

  • Airport Mania: First Flight
  • Paper Pilot
Start with a Book Home

Start with a Book, a summer and out-of-school-time learning project from Reading Rockets, is designed to help kids strengthen their reading and writing skills and build background knowledge. Start with a Book is made possible with major support from the Park Foundation, Inc.

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Reading Rockets is a national public media literacy initiative offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help. Contact Us

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