Wednesday, March 19, 2014

"Let's Go Fly a Kite"

We tried to get our foam kites to fly in the classroom today, but the big stand-up fan wasn't exactly cooperative.
Using the power link Power Link link enabled the students to safely depress a large switch to make the electrical connection to the fan, but the fan control panel was a little sophisticated and required two buttons to be depressed before turning on--those power links don't like electrical devices that are so fussy.   So, we used a human to press button #2 on the fan once the student activated the target switch.
Yesterday, one of my teacher friends was looking at me a little funny when she saw me making silly kites out of thin foam, "Do you think that will work?" she asked.  Well, no--not for running around the room with them in the air.  However...

...it worked just fine with them suspended from a PVC pipe, so the wind could blow them around.  Plus, the thin foam kites will have more of a chance than their traditional paper cousins to stay intact when students explore them orally!
Turns out the little video clip used by the teacher, taken from the last scene in Mary Poppins, was a bit of a tearjerker, but it included the perfect song for our activity.

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