Summer vacation has ended. Now it’s back to another kind of joy: learning in classrooms with classmates and teachers.
Adventures over? Never.
Here’s one very special adventure that you can do today, Father’s Day, or during weekends with your dad: kite flying.
Have you ever flown a kite? People around the world have been making and flying kites for about 2,000 years. The name “kite†comes from a graceful bird—any of various and usually small hawks (family Accipitridae)—with long narrow wings and often a notched or forked tail.
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The kite that we know is a toy made with a light frame, and with cloth, paper,or plastic (or any thin material) stretched over it. It is flown in the wind, where it sways and swoops, glides and dance, at the end of a long string. It mimics the movement of kite, the bird.
Nobody knows for sure who flew the very first kites. Many historians believe that the ancient Chinese may have started kite flying.
But others think it may have already existed before then in the South Sea Islands. There, they used kites to fish, attaching a bait to the tail of the kite and a web to catch the fish. Even today, some natives of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean use kites as a fishing aid.
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Today, kite-flying is a very popular activity in China, Japan and Korea and other countries in Asia, where beautifully decorated kites fly the skies on weekends and special occasions.
In China there is even a special Kites Day on which children and adults fly kites. In Japan, families fly fish kites on Children’s Day, May 5.
Kites were unknown in Europe for centuries until Marco Polo brought them back from his travels to the East. Today, Europeans and Americans use kites for all kinds of scientific and military purposes.
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A kite can be simple or complicated—in any size or shape or color. It flies because air flows over and under its wing. The pressure under the wing helps get the kite lifted into the air.
You could say that the kite was the original inspiration for man to fly, and so it must have inspired the making of the airplane as well.
Kites have also been used in experiments. Early scientists sent kites up into the air to measure temperature at different heights. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin used a kite to prove that lightning was a form of electricity. He attached a metal key to the string of a kite. When lightning hit the kite, electricity passed down the string and Franklin got an electric shock. Ouch!
It was a very dangerous experiment — please do not copy what he did.
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To go kite-flying, you may either buy a ready-made kite or make your own—simple, flat kites are easy to do. Or your father may have already made you one.
Kite-flying is safe, inexpensive and environment friendly. Kite-flying also has many benefits for you and your dad:
It is a good exercise. As you fly your kite, you run and walk, leap and skip. It also enhances creative thinking, both in the making of the kite as well as in flying it. Another wonderful benefit of kite-flying is that you develop concentration.
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Today, invite your father to a kite-flying adventure and enjoy your day together!
I’d love to see a photo of your kite via email: gdchong@gmail.com, or you may attach the photo in the comment box of my blogsite: www.leavesofgrace.blogspot.com.