IRVINE : Flight of the Kite Unfurls Creativity

With art paper, crayons, paste and scissors in hand, 26 Orange County teachers went back to school this weekend to learn how to make and fly kites.

As much fun as that sounds, the teachers were actually hard at work learning a new teaching method. By learning how to design and construct the flying toys, they also learned how to teach their students the mathematics and artistic concepts involved in building a kite.

“There’s more to kites than just flying them,” said instructor Berny Jones. “They can provide avenues into math, art and even the writing of poetry.”

From Friday to Sunday, the teachers attended a 20-hour seminar entitled, “Paper and Wind: Art in Action,” at Westwood Basics Plus School, where they learned how to apply the principles of putting together a kite and other paper objects to their classroom lessons. They received two transferable college credits from Kansas-based McPherson College for the two-day course.

The course is designed as part of a move by many schools across the state and the nation to integrate basic primary subjects such as math, science, language and art into common lessons.

Marge Mei, who teaches second grade at Imperial Elementary School in Anaheim Hills, said that in making kites and other wind-propelled objects, her students will learn how to be artistically creative while learning how to use math.

“They have to use their measurement skills in order to create a kite that would fly,” Mei said as she threw into the air a paper “helicopter,”--a contraption that looks like a rabbit whose floppy ears are folded at a 90-degree angle. The ears twirl, and the helicopter spins towards the ground.

The same helicopter could also teach an older student how to find the estimated speed of a free-falling object.

Besides teaching his students mathematical concepts, sixth-grade teacher Tom Alessi from Meadow Park Elementary School in Irvine plans to have his students write an essay describing the sensation of flying a kite.

“I may even have them write poetry,” Alessi said as he maneuvered his Dutch eddy--a colorful 10-by-14-inch kite. “With kites, the kids can also color and design (and) do whatever their imagination allows.”

A few feet away from Alessi, Sue Erikson from Palmyra Elementary School in Orange prepared to test her wind sail, a low-flying kite that twirls to create an illusion of colors blending together.

“What fun it is to just be a kid and learn how to control something that’s in the air while you’re standing on the ground,” the second-grade teacher said as she ran across the field with her black and red wind sail.