My 1st graders learned about the history of kite flying in India for their Cultural Heritage project. We watched the first part of a video about a Kite Festival in India that shows the transition from day to night.
We talked about what we saw in the video and then looked at some photos of kites. The students made symmetrical kites with liquid tempera. First, they folded the 9 inch (I think) square paper with a taco fold so that it would be oriented on the diagonal. Next, I showed the students how to paint a little section on one half of their kites, fold, and press, then repeat until they were satisfied with their designs. Originally, I was going to just have them make kites but then they wanted to add string, and then I started thinking about how to get them to imagine the experience more.
In the next class, students created a drawing on either black or light blue 12x18 inch paper of the kite festival at either day or night. In the video, we saw many people on rooftops to fly kites so that is where most students drew themselves. After the drawing was complete, the students glued their kites and connected yarn from the kite to their drawn hands.
Nighttime was the most popular choice because there were lots of fireworks! A few students did choose daytime. I also very briefly talked about perspective and how the kites look closer to the viewer since they are bigger than the drawn people.
Students wrote sentences about their imaginary experience at the kite festival. Click the picture for a larger view if you want to decipher cute beginning of the school year 1st grade sentences. :)
This sounds like it was a great lesson. I like what the kids did with the kites and the drawings. I am going to pin this for later so I can do this with my kids.
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