On two separate Fridays in May, six San Diego Kite Club members volunteered their time and kites to teach Montessori school children about kiting. SD Kite Club president Ziggy Saint Marie, Revolution Kite Inventor Joe Hadzicki and Erin Quinn volunteered on 23 May and Russ Dickison, Laura Dickison, and Mark Quirmbach volunteered on 30 May.
The Kite Club members were joined by Coastal Sage Montessori School children at Buena Vista Reservoir Park in Carlsbad, CA. The children’s school was a block away from the park.
On each day, the students were escorted to the park by their teacher. On the 23rd, the teacher brought one group of 10 kids, and about an hour later, brought a second group of 10 kids. On the 30th, due to absences, the teacher brought 15 kids all at once, and they stayed at the park enjoying kite lessons for about 3 full hours. A couple children ignored their lunch break and continued to fly well past the scheduled end time.
Once the children arrived, they were put side by side and the volunteers introduced themselves. This was followed by lessons on kite flying that included:
• What is a single line kite, dual line kite and quad line kite.
• What parts are on each kite such as sail, frame, bridle, and kite lines.
• Wind speed
• Wind Direction
• Safety while flying
• Walking backwards creates wind
• Upwind and downwind
On the 30th, the volunteers quizzed the children on the lessons that they had received the previous week and added more information on safety of flying, and some kite trivia (did you know that the earliest written account of kite flying was about 200 B.C. when the Chinese General Han Hsin of the Han Dynasty flew a kite over the walls of a city he was attacking to measure how far his army would have to tunnel to reach past the defenses?)
The volunteers then shared their kite bag contents, and put kites in the children’s hands. During the first session on 23 May, SD Kite Club president, Ziggy, presented each of the students with a kite of their own but none of them brought the kites for the next lesson. Fortunately, the volunteers had enough of their own kites that they were able to entertain the children.
Learning that the children had done well at flying Revolution kites the week before, Mark Q. set up two of his Revs, one with a 20’ line and the second with 40’ lines. The rest of the morning had Mark untangling kite lines pretty much non-stop, oh, and the other two volunteers aided as well.
During the first session, there was plenty of wind. However, on the second day, the winds did not pick up until after an hour. The volunteers used this time to demonstrate windless kiting with a Prism Zero-G.
Single line kites were also a hit. Laura launched her Robert Brassington “Ladies” kite, and it seemed to be the biggest hit aside from the Revs, probably because Laura used a kite reel with moving parts (they enjoyed letting out line, then reeling it back in). Russ contributed a few Prism Kites, EO-6, Bora 7, Pocket Flyer, Triad and Vertex to the field, and the kids were running all over the field attempting to get them up. Once the winds picked up a little, it was much easier for them to get them into the air, and stay there.