The windmill

First, students will watch the entire video and express themselves freely on the content. Ask the students: “For you, what is air? ". Allow to answer then question again: “Do you know any objects that work with the wind? » After collecting their proposals, then offer a second viewing. Students will be asked to focus on windmills and explain what they understand about how they work.

Then suggest making “reels” or windmills using the Eduscol resource

The teacher presents a windmill (prototype) to the students and then demonstrates its operating principle and its different parts. Question: “How can it be made?” » Search for solutions: Students collectively develop manufacturing steps. Then, they collectively read a technical sheet whose steps are compared to the students' proposals. Any omissions are then cleared.

Manufacturing and testing: In groups of two, the students make a reel. They test it and readjust the manufacturing if necessary.

Sequence and material sheet

• [The air, material?](https://cache.media.eduscol.education.fr/file/Air/95/1/RA16_C2_QMON_1_air_Sequence_1_632951.pdf) on Eduscol.
• The air on the “Lala loves her class” blog.
• Make a windmill on livre-interactive.com.
• The 4 blade reel on les-coccinelles.fr

Transversal resource links

• In musical education: wind instruments and natural percussion (instrument making and composition creation) on the Nancy-Metz academy website.

Kinetic art

Kinetic art is an artistic movement that offers works containing moving parts.

• Discover on its site Anthony Home's sculptures whose movement is produced by the wind.
• Discover in video Theo Jansen's beach animals, a trained physicist who puts his knowledge at the service of art and imagines creatures moving by the sole force of the wind.