Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Students Fly Kites

Kindergarten students in Sue Cowart's class at Blevins Elementary recently enjoyed flying kites on the school playground.

This experience was then utilized in the classroom as part of a Language Experience Approach (LEA) to reading part of Cowart's K-4 Crusade program.

In LEA, children write and read stories based on their own experience and vocabulary. Through language experience, students practice and improve their listening, speaking, reading and writing. With kindergartners, a story may be only a line or two at first.

Sample stories include the following. Seth Crowe said, "Sometimes when you go the same way the kite is going, it will fall." Reniesha Randle said, "When it gets in the wind, the kite goes back in the sky." Levette Harden's story stated, "My kite went so fast that I couldn't even stop my kite!" Jessica Dixon stated, "I was flying my teacher's kite and I fell." Kyle Rowe said, "I was running my kite. I stopped and it stayed in the air."

Mrs. Cowart is enrolled in the K-4 Crusade currently meeting at Prescott Elementary School on Tuesday evenings. As new methods are introduced, crusade members put them to work in their own classrooms.