Another theme I like to read about during March is Reading Month is KITES.

To add color to my hallway, I hang some interesting kites from the ceiling.  My students’ favorite is the butterfly. I add more in April when we study that unit.

I also decorate my students’ lockers with nametag kites and their squisher kite artwork. 

I wrote my favorite kite books on an inexpensive Dollar Store kite and stuck it in the middle of a bulletin board with a blue-papered background.  The title: Reading Helps You Soar To Great Heights!

Some crumpled up white tissue paper, helped make the 3-D clouds.  Take a picture of each of your students reading a kite book, mount them on multi-colored kites, with yarn tails and staple them around the kite.  Easy and instant bulletin board.

As a home-school connection my students create ME kites.  Click on the link to view/print the ME-kite letter home. This is a great way to learn more about your students, and a wonderful opportunity for them to share and increase their verbal acuity.  Simply cut out a diamond shape on a half sheet of tag board and send it home with the letter.

Instead of the usual recess, I asked for several parent volunteers to walk to the park and they helped the children fly my collection of kites.  They had a memorable blast.

One year my semi-professional kite flyer friend Donovan, was available. Hhe came and gave an awesome loop-de-loop demonstration of all his kite tricks.

Afterwards, students ran around with their own decorated plastic grocery bag kites to see how high they could get them.

Simply turn printed grocery sacks inside out and let students decorate with permanent markers and stickers, tie a string on the handles so they can pull it.  You can also do the same with a paper lunch bag, but cut a hole in each corner and then insert the string.

I take an entire day or two to do a theme around kites. 

Click on the links to check out these fun activity booklets and Unit: My Easy Reader Counting Kite Booklet (With Math Extensions), Go Fly A Kite, (Spatial Directions) My Shapely Kite, (Reviews Shapes)  Where Have All The Kites Gone, (subtraction easy reader), My Kite Counting booklet (Math activities)  + the big 78-page Kite Unit. One of the things my students enjoy making in the Kite Unit is the slider pictured on the right.

My favorite easy reader is: My Kite booklet because of all the fun extensions. Pictured on the left, is the rhyming word kite. Click on the link to view the entire booklet. 

I also like The Shape Of My 3D Kite because it helps review those tough shapes in an interesting and fun way.

I have a Kk is for Kite poster that lists all of the rhyming words.

I also have 5 kite activities in my 133-page Spring Art & Activities Book. One of my students’ favorites is the Japanese watercolor fish kite. Click on the link to view the adorable photographs.

There are also other fun and easy projects that make great March bulletin boards, as you reinforce report card standards and explore some science concepts.

You can do the math extension kite graph with your students, as well as share the kite poems or make the class kite book; view/print the kite activities.

During story time we enjoy the following: 

The Emperor and The Kite, Yolen; Kite Flying, Lin; Kite, Packard; Laura’s Secret, Baumgart; Berenstain Bears: We Like Kites, Bear’s Bargain, Asch; Dora and The Rainbow Kite Festival, Ricci.

I hope you got a few ideas to supplement your March is Reading Month plans or kite activities. 

May they take you up-up and away to a great day … of reading!