The Educational Merits Of Model Kits
Monday, January 26th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
Model Kits do seem predominantly to be “boy’s toys”, although girls also enjoy constructing them.Ranging from civil and military aircraft to military vehicles and cars, ships, spacecraft, figures and dioramas, most people will think “toy” when the term “model kits” is used.
There’s still an astonishing range of plastic construction kits suitable for a variety of ages and levels of competence or ability. Aside from giving hours of pleasure and fun to young and old, in some cases becoming the basis of a lifelong hobby interest, plastic model kits will help any child develop a variety of skills and aptitudes.
Your child’s motor skills will be certainly be developed by constructing these model kits, but they will also encourage co-ordination and planning and logical thinking.Part and parcel of making model kits is to identify parts on the plastic sprue and relate them to written instructions.You also need to identify where small parts fit and in which sequence those parts fit together.How to accurately and efficiently follow directions is a valuable life skill too!
However, making model kits involves more than just logical thinking and planning. Your child’s creativity and patience will be improved as will the appreciation of the craftsmanship required to build and finish any model, and by extension the value of adopting those same principles in any work or project.Painting the finished model will improve artistic appreciation and develop motor precision skills.
But model kits needn’t just mean those familiar, glued or snapped together plastic boats, ships or tanks. Other model kits available, such as model rockets, incorporate all the education benefits of the static 1/24 or 1/72 scale world, but go much further by actually working properly!
Mathematics takes on a whole new relevance for a child in model rocketry.Showing how to calculate something like flight trajectory becomes more meaningful.The imagination required to build and finish a model rocket is matched by the technical skills you need to develop.An understanding of electronics and mechanics will be enhanced by doing something fun and practical with them. Physical education will also benefit, especially when you launch a model rocket in a strong wind and have to chase it across country when it comes to earth!
Encouraging your children to get stuck into model kits is probably the most enjoyable yet significant learning activity you can undertake at almost any age.Better if you join in too!
