RUSTAVI: A head teacher in the Georgian city of Rustavi has found an unusual way to get children’s early education off the ground — by transforming an aeroplane into a kindergarten.
Gari Chapidze bought the old but fully functional Yakovlev Yak-42 from Georgian Airways and refurbished its interior with educational equipment, games and toys but left the cockpit instruments intact so they could be used as play tools.
“The idea was to create a kindergarten where children go with joy,” Chapidze, the rector of the Institute of Georgian-Ukrainian Social Relations that runs the kindergarten, said.
“Sometimes kids have difficulties in adapting to kindergarten, to a new environment. We decided to help them by making it fun,” he said.
There are around 1,500 buttons in the small Soviet-era plane’s cockpit which the kindergarten’s 15 children can play with as they imitate real pilots taking off, he said.
Georgia teacher turns plane into kindergarten
Georgia teacher turns plane into kindergarten
