"Up to the Highest Height"

I can't believe it, but it was only the second week of school. The Red band has tackled a new school and learning between two different spaces. We continue to learn more about each other every day while we embark on our study of - The Movement of Things: By-Air. This week we began with a brainstorm session around important concepts to cover during this arc. Some ideas were: wings, wind, air, flying, soaring, and flapping.

Kite week taught us many lessons on the importance of stick-to-itiveness, problem-solving on the fly, and testing our theories.

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 Our week started with our vitamin on symmetry. After reading Let’s Fly a Kite: Symmetry by Stuart J. Murphy, the kids were charged with creating their own symmetrical kite out of pattern blocks. We continued to explore symmetry with some cardboard shapes and rubber bands and symmetrical painting in preparation for the week's challenge of constructing a kite.

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The kids began by creating drawings of their kites on 8.5" x 8.5" paper, then scaled up to 3' x 3' butcher paper patterns. We used tape, Tyvek, wooden dowels, and polyethylene tubing to create our kites.

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Our final step was to venture to Bernal Heights hill and test our creations.

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And with some perseverance and observation we had many crashes, mends,  and one high-flier!

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