Take Flight With a DIY Kite

Apr 12, 201930 min activity

Building a kite is a great way to explore wind and how it moves things.

Pinkalicious and Peterrific can’t wait to fly their own kites when they see the trees are swaying. Help your child learn more about wind by asking them to observe what they see outside. Take your child outside or look out the window with them and ask, “Is it windy? How can you tell?”

Ask your child to help you build and decorate a kite. Maybe they’ll want to make a cloud kite, a pig kite or something else. Then, help them fly the kite. See how high they can make it fly. If your child doesn’t like how their kite flies, you can help them make small changes to their kite like Pinkalicious and Peterrific did to make theirs go up, up, up to the clouds!

Materials

2 straight sticks about 2-3 feet long, one slightly shorter than the other
String, yarn or ribbon
Craft knife or small knife to cut into wood
Newspaper or large pieces of paper
Markers
Scissors
Glue or tape
Additional art supplies for decoration (optional)

Directions

Carefully carve a small notch into both ends of each wooden stick for your child. The notches must be cut in the same direction.

Lay the slightly shorter wooden stick across the other stick to form a “t.” Help your child use the string to tie the sticks at the center. Make sure the notches are lined up.

Help your child pull the string into the notches around the ends of the sticks.

Unfold the newspaper and help your child cut a pattern to match the shape of the kite frame. Make it an inch or two larger than the frame all the way around so you can fold the edges over the string.

Together, spread the newspaper over the stick frame, fold the edges over the string and glue them in place.

Once the glue is dry, tie a long string to the kite where the sticks cross.

Finally, decorate the outside of your kite with your art supplies! You can use a giant piece of paper to create any shape to glue to the outside.

Now it’s time to fly the kite! Ask your child questions like, “Can you tell which direction the wind is blowing? Can you fly the kite when it’s not windy? Why not?”