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title: Teaching the Korean Bird Kite
Level: Primary (grades K – 2/3)
Length: two to five sessions, including student readings, kite making, and kite flying. Sessions can be taught in a different order, with some combined or omitted. The kite alone can be constructed in 40 minutes (minimal decoration and no flying time).
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Curriculum Integration (readings with activities address the following grade level expectations):
- Science: understands simple propertiesof common natural objects; understands how to ask a question about objects, organisms, and events in the environment.
- Mathematics: understands meaning of addition and subtraction (cutting and taping tail pieces; more or fewer depending on wind conditions); understands attributes to describe and compare objects; understands concept of symmetry; estimates length using non-standard units.
- Social Studies: identifies the ways cultural traditions are expressed through artistic creations and use of the environment.
- Visual Arts: identifies line direction and free-form shapes; uses art tools and materials safely and appropriately; applies a creative process in the arts; identifies personal aesthetic choices.
- Language Arts: uses context to predict and confirm meaning of unknown words; uses new vocabulary from informative/expository test; identifies important parts of informative / expository text; reads to learn new information; reads to perform a task; writes for different purposes; writes in a variety of forms/genres (answers to questions).
Cultural Integration: Asia
focus: These activities introduce simple Korean vocabulary and concepts about Korean culture for very young students through a reading about the country’s national emblem, which is represented in one of the country’s kites. They establish a cultural context for the easy-to-make, easy-to-fly Korean bird kite, which is available in a kit. These readings can be supplemented with a general reading about flying a kite.
 Materials:
AND/OR
- Student reading: Flying a Kite [PDF file]
- Extension Activities: Writing & Discussing
- Scissors; Scotch tape; markers, pens, crayons, and/or watercolors, per student
- Korean Bird Kite Kit (with paper pattern, spars, flying line & winder), per student
session one: Student Reading (30-45 minutes)
The reading The Korean Magpie provides a cultural context for a design adapted from a traditional Korean kite that is simple enough for very young students to make.
optional session two: Student Reading/Activities (30-45 minutes)
Use the reading Flying a Kite to introduce basic concerns and techniques in flying a kite, including being safe and partnering with the wind. Extension activities (wind vocabulary and experiences, kite-eating tree; proverb) provided here [PDF].
sessions three – five: Decorating, Constructing, and Flying the Korean Bird Kite (30-90 minutes). These activities could be grouped into one or two longer sessions: cutting out and decorating the sail; constructing the kite; flying the kite.
- Follow assembly instructions from the kite kit.
- Cutting and taping the tails will take the most time for young students. Teachers/ adult helpers can speed this process with a paper cutter. Tails can also be decorated.
- Decorating the kite sail can be integrated with more sustained visual arts instruction in: free-form shape; primary and secondary colors; symmetry in design.
- Take extra tails and spars, plus tape, to the flying field for repairs or additions in heavy winds.
Additional Resources
- The website Magpie in Nature & Myth, edited by Peter Y. Chou, provides links to information and beliefs about magpies from several cultures. Life in Korea explains Korean associations with many animals, including magpies and tigers: clear color images make this an attractive site for young children. Illustration from the website.
Community members visiting the Renton Technical College International Fair, Renton , WA , in June 2006 made Korean Bird kites. Thanks to Beth Hale for organizing kite making projects at this event.
First posted December 2006.
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