SIMI VALLEY : Kite-Building Students Turn Flight Engineers

Principal Beverley Radloff told 400 grade-school students at Atherwood School in Simi Valley to go fly a kite Monday.

And they did.

The school’s 400 students made the kites themselves from paper and plastic trash bags, wooden dowels, glue and string. Radloff, who supervised the kite-building, said the project builds math and language skills.

Students had to measure the kite parts with rulers. And Radloff quizzed one student about kites, Benjamin Franklin and electricity.

Kite-flying is also fun, Radloff said.

Students conducting the in-flight testing on Monday seemed to agree.

Bryan Gallareto, a third-grader, said he hoped to fly his white plastic kite again during the summer. The breeze had carried it almost to the end of its 500 feet of string.

“It was way over there!” Bryan said, pointing off into the distance.

The sheer variety of kites dancing in the sky above the school impressed sixth-grader Sam Mazarei.

“Some are airplane-shaped,” he said, looking up into the air. “There’s a dragon right there. I like that one.”

Some students got their kite lines tangled. Some kites ended up caught in trees or on the school’s roof. But most of them soared in the sky until students reeled them back to the ground.