The Invincible Kite

I'll be honest. It was the first time I attempted this. I had never constructed a kite from scratch. But, my students needed me to lead them on the the process of creating one... So... let's do it! I said.

Growing up, I used to fly kites with my dad all the time. I loved it. I even do it from time to time with my children, but never had I considered to build one. Fortunately I had seen many home-made kites before so I did have an idea on hoy to construct one.

As you may had well imagined, the first thing that crossed my mind I needed to do was create the design ON the kite. But I needed to construct the backbone of the thing first! so I quickly grabbed two sticks and tied them together at the center. Measured the amount of paper that would cover the contraption, and we started designing "Mr. Invencible", our Circle's Mascot.

My students had a blast coloring my original sketch. They argued amongst themselves on what colors, would the character have and how would they be combined. They figured it out and did a wonderful job with them. We waited until it was dry, and using what we could find, tied and pasted the paper on top of the backbone we had developed earlier. We made the frontal chords and knots, and tied our string. We were ready!

The next day, we went to "El Morro" as a field trip to see if Mr. Invencible would fly. Many friends were betting against us, but we felt positive! So we prepared ourselves for failure, hoping for success!

After a few tries, Mr. Invencible leaped high and played around with the wind that was howling through his paper cape. 4 seconds: that's how long he flew. Oh, well. At least we had a blast constructing it, and can now give a few pointers on what NOT to do wen creating your own kite.

Mr. Invencible is now safely hung on one of our classroom's walls, reminding us that sometimes, the process in itself is more important than the end product.