Monday, May 13, 2013

2013 Kite Festival....This year with actual kite flying!

Once again we went down to the National Mall with my brand new kite that I got for Christmas!

This year, we managed to get the kite up into the air! If you recall from LAST YEAR we had some trouble getting the kite up. Granted, I think that part of the problem was that we had bought a lousy kite, but the day also wasn't that windy. This year was gorgeous out, AND we had some heavy windy moments!
We got the kite up so high!
Dad helped me get it up by using his patented method of finessing the string once we got it up there!
Once he got it up in the air, he handed me the string, and I got to fly the kite myself!
We had it so far up, that it was a little scary, and I was sometimes worried, but ultimately I had a lot of fun flying it!
Next up, Mom got in on the action, and she also did a really good job of getting the kite up there, too!
We were both flying it when it was way up in the air, and even though there were a lot of other kites around, we did a pretty good job at not bumping into anyone else!
We had a lot of fun flying the kite together, and whenever the wind died down...
...it was my job to go and grab the kite and bring it back so that Mom could relaunch it again.
I even helped her relaunch it! It wasn't easy, but once I got the hang of it...
...we were back in business, and I ran around to get out of the way.
Once Mom had the kite settled nice and high against the gorgeous backdrop of that perfect sky, with the Capitol in the background....
She nudged it even higher!
I could barely keep track of it, since it was so high up!
She handed me the string again, and I can't tell you how exhilarating it was to be in control of it, flying it around the sky, and working so hard to keep it up there. It was nice when the wind settled into a nice pattern, and you could just minimally nudge the string to make sure it was kept up there...
Sometimes I got so worried because of how high up it was, but the fun always overwhelmed the feelings of stress that I had...
Even though I was having lots of fun, inevitably I got bored and started running around the Mall.

Dad caught me a few times, and we hung out together so we could rest...
...but only long enough for me to get back up and have him chase me again!
Thanks so much for my kite gift (I think my Great Aunt may have given it to me) and thanks for taking me out to fly a kite, Mom and Dad!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

My take home hibernation project!

Who writes about homework? Just me cuz we make it awesome! That's right...we had another take-home project, and it referenced the hibernation station chapter that we had been focusing on at school. We had to choose an animal that hibernates, and then make a diorama about it. My first diorama! Cool, right!? When I first proclaimed that I wanted to do one on the frog, Dad thought I was nuts...he didn't know that some frogs hibernate. Well, I taught him something that day! :-)
We decided to print out little frog bodies on green paper, which I cut out...
While I did that, Mom put brown tape on a shoe box to make it look more swampy.
Once I finished cutting out both frogs from their green paper...
...Dad helped me get some frog face stickers, and I added them on to the cut out frogs to give them a bit more personality.
Mom and I glued the frogs to the bottom of the "swamp" we had built, and we added some colored puff balls, because really...making regular looking rocks would have been dull. I'd rather my rocks look pretty, right? Don't you agree?
Dad and I added some grass (I later added a tree, not pictured, for no real reason other than to make it look more aesthetically pleasing) and Mom put some plastic wrap on there to simulate water (frogs hibernate under water) and voila! It was done! Pretty cool, huh? We all thought it came out pretty awesome!
I wrote on the bottom of the diorama: Frog By Sam...and Dad helped me write: "The frogs are happy because they are underwater hibernating in the forest." I dictated it, and Dad wrote it down just like I asked him to...