Kids and Kites

For Joy School one day the kids made these tiny kites out of nothing but paper, string and tape. I know, you don't even have to tell me. A professional kite flyer would be jealous of these little masters of the sky. These babies will fly like eagles, is just what I thought... not.

But...

Guess what happened?

Well, first let me just say that we have had  a few afternoons of unsuccessful attempts to get real kites in the air -- you know, the kind you buy in the store, spend two hours trying to get to stay in the air for more than three seconds, and all you end up having to show for the ten bucks you spent is a broken kite, and a couple of kids wondering why exactly we called that activity 'flying kites' -- yeah, we've been there, done that, and the kids have been disappointed.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when the kids took these kites outside and thought they were the greatest things since peanut butter. They had so much fun with them, and ran around the yard flying/dragging their kites along for quite some time.

Maybe it's because the kites were their own creation.

Maybe it's because they could fly these kites without any help.

Maybe it's because the kites actually did fly (sort of).

Or maybe it's because they looked at the kites, developed extremely low expectations of the kites' potential performance, and were pleasantly surprised like I was to see that they actually did sort of work.

Whatever the reason, the kids and the kites reminded me of something very important that day.

They reminded me that creating something simple is usually better than buying something fancy. I think it's because a lot of joy comes from the creating part, and then being able to actually use it, magnifies that joy.

Oh, and you can never have too much paper, string and tape.