Last week we read a story called My Kite. It was all about the different directions a kite could fly. It is a beginner reader so it is repetitive in its High Frequency words. It also introduced us to some position and direction words. After reading the story, one of the provocations out all week on the making table was, "Can you create a kite or something that will fly?" There were materials and some pictures, but the creating was up to the kids.
At first only a few children wanted to make kites. So they set off, looking at some models and thinking about how they could make their kites.
Initially, they worked next to each other but independently.
Eventually they began to work together when they needed help.
After a few of them made their kites, naturally the next thing to do was to go outside and test them out. Here's where the magic happened!
We began talking about what kites needed to fly, why some of them were flying better than others, if running one direction made a difference for our kites. We touched on wind power, velocity, surface area of a kite, materials that seemed to be working better than others. We began thinking like scientists. Children then began making second kites, making changes to their original kites and soon enough the whole class was making kites, testing them, changing them, testing them again! We were going through the design process. We were learning about science and technology and we didn't even know it!
When we had tested and changed and retested we went inside to tell our stories about them and we began to draw and write!
The whole process was hands on, it was fun and it felt purposeful. The words we were writing were words we were reading so there were connections. We made videos and stories to show our mums and dads on Seesaw and to explain what our kites could do.
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