First in Flight

Describe the Wright brothers, and locate Kitty Hawk.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 15

For thousands of years, people dreamed of flying. Orville and Wilbur Wright, two brothers who ran a bicycle shop in Ohio, set out to do it.
They tested gliders and wing shapes again and again. They chose Kitty Hawk, on the North Carolina coast, for its steady breezes and soft sand.
On December 17, 1903, their airplane left the ground under its own power. The first flight lasted just 12 seconds. The longest that day lasted 59 seconds.
Those short hops changed the world. Within a lifetime, people and mail crossed the country in hours instead of days.

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS5H1.b — Describe the impact on American life of the Wright brothers (flight), George Washington Carver (science), Alexander Graham Bell (communication), and Thomas Edison (electricity).
SS5G1.a — Locate important man-made places; include the Chisholm Trail; Pittsburgh, PA; Kitty Hawk, NC; Pearl Harbor, HI; Montgomery, AL.; and Chicago, IL.