Kites Take Flight!

Week ONE of FUN CLUB brought us watercolor painting, “The Cat in the Hat” (great tie-in to kites as Thing One and Thing Two fly their kites in the house), Rules to Keep Us Happy and Safe (done as a guess-what’s-happening-in-this-picture game), and playtime with friends.

Choosing stations included: Playdough, dinosaurs, magnet letters, chalkboard coloring, quiet reading (all Dr. Seuss easy-readers this week) in the reading tent, or connector blocks.

Week TWO of FUN CLUB brought us some review and reminders, a walking trip to the Sedgwick Playlot, experiments with our kites, and playtime! We were lucky to have gorgeous, unseasonably warm weather to make our walking outings extra fun.

Before walking outings, we practice an action/memory game on how to walk safely. We:

STOP!!! (we all do “stop” with both hands)
HOLD HANDS (we all grab hands with the person next to us at circle-time)
LOOK BOTH WAYS (we all show with our heads looking left-right-left)
WAIT FOR A TEACHER OR GROWN UP (we show waiting patiently for the go-ahead to cross the street)

When we go on walking trips, we wear BRIGHT yellow shirts with all of M. Club’s info listed, we recruit parent/caregiver volunteers for extra eyes and hands, we walk in a “train” with teachers in the front (engine), middle (cars), and end (caboose), we hold hands the entire way with friends, and we take first aid items, parent cell phone numbers, and water with. We begin the year with a short walk down quiet streets to help everyone learn and practice in safety.

All of the eight classes did an EXCELLENT job, and were rewarded with stars toward our token economy known as the “Teeeeeny, Tiiiiny, Toy Store”!

At the playlot, we talked about basic flight concepts. This will tie in later in the year when we make and fly paper airplanes. I held a lifeless kite and asked the children why my kite wouldn’t go? They all answered, “Because there’s no wind!!!” I asked them how I could make wind…answers ranged from “Blow on it!” to “Run really fast!” to “Get a BIG fan!!!” I then asked them to think quietly for a minute about other ways they could make wind on the playground. Experiments ranged from spinning in circles to walking to running to sliding down slides different ways to jumping from up high to down low to going down stairs to dangling a kite over the edge of something and waiting for a good breeze.

Kites were sent home at the end of class along with smiling students!

***”Thing Two and Thing One! They ran up, they ran down. On the string of one kite we saw Mother’s new gown! Her gown with the dots that are pink, white, and red…then we saw one kite bump on the head of her bed!” from The Cat in the Hat***