Studying Wind

We read Gail Gibbons book Catch the Wind! for science. (As of the time of this post, I am not an affiliate of Amazon, I'm just including the site for book reference.) The book is all about kites. My kids loved it. They each took turns pointing out different things about the different kites on each page. I was impressed that Miss E actually let her brother point things out. They both started thinking about how they were going to decorate their kites when we made them.

To start off our study of wind, I did a little experiment with the kids. What I wanted them to understand is that wind is just the movement of air. We took a Coke bottle and put a balloon on the top. 

I put a little bit of water in a skillet and warmed it up. 

I then put the bottle in the hot water and we watched the balloon expand. Pretty much like magic in the eyes of my kids!

We also made wind socks. We used a small paper sack, some crayons and colored pencils, crape paper, yarn, and tape. The kids decorated their sacks. Then they tapes pieces of crape paper around the opening. I punched a hole in the bottom of the bag and attached the yarn. We then took our wind socks outside.

Our front patio is pretty protected from the wind. The kids did see that a slight breeze did move their wind sock as they held it but there was nothing too exciting.

 I was not going to let the kids go outside our gate because they were in their jammers (and I didn't want the neighborhood kids to think we had a ton of time to play). However, I knew that the wind was blowing and I knew that the kids would see it better if we were not in our protected front yard. So, out we went. There was a pretty good gust of wind that make their wind socks take flight. They started to run around like they were trying to make a kite take off. I later learned that I was supposed to cut off the bottom of the sack. Oh well, the kids had tons of fun anyway.

Of course when you read a book about kites you have to make a kite!! Using the directions in the back of our book, we made a Flat Kite. This is what we did.

I had some large packing type paper and had the kids paint their kites. I do believe Miss E ended up helping Little Man with his at the end.

  

Miss E's

Do you see Fox In Sox??

Little Man's 

After the kites dried we worked on making the frame for the kite. I just used small dowel rods, kite string and glue. I quickly learned that I'm really not the DIY type person. If it wasn't for the help of Daddy, I don't think we ever would have finished the kites.

The finished kites...

We headed off to the park. I just said that I'm not a DIYer and I had no faith in our kites, so on the way to the park we stopped at the Dollar Tree to buy a kite. I had to have a plan b. When we arrived at the park we were in for a surprise. First it was the hottest day of the year and second there was absolutely no wind or breeze or anything when we first got there. I didn't think we were going to get our kites to fly at all.

The kids kept asking when they would be able to fly their kites and I kept telling them we had to have wind. Finally the wind kicked up and we took our first kite a test drive.

We did get it in the air for a couple of seconds and then it started to fall apart. We then pulled out the kite I bought and it didn't fair any better. We'll have to try flying kites again some other day.

My good friend, Allison over at Train Up A Child did a great tutorial on making kites, check it out!

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Blessings,

Elizabeth