The basics of flying kites with kids for anyone else, like us, who likes the idea but doesn’t know where to start.
1. Get a kite
Harder than it sounds. We’ve done our fair share of cheap kites at the beach. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can fly them easily and finds them brilliant but it’s not us.
It’s worth spending a bit of time finding a kite designed to fly easily, specially with kids. You also want one that’s tough and less likely to break. I’d avoid the ones with rods unless they’re really well made.
2. Find the right location
The most difficult part of kite flying is getting the right location. You want somewhere big, flat, windy and without too many people. Beaches are great. They’re harder to negotiate in summer when they’re busier though.
I’ve found that B has no idea of where her kite strings are or the danger they pose to passers by. It’s getting better as she gets older but getting space to yourself is vital for parental sanity.
3. It takes two
One to hold the string and fly the kite. The other to throw it into the wind. B tends to hold the strings most of the time but I get a go sometimes.
It also needs some good teamwork to get the kite ready and keep the string untangled.
4. DON’T LET THE STRINGS TANGLE
No photos because at that point we’re both too cross and bothered to think of it. If you’ve got to the string tangling point maybe give up and try and again later?
5. Find the wind
You need a windy day. We head out if the wind speed is higher than about 16mph. If it’s really really windy it can be too wild though.
Before you start, work out where the wind is flying from. Easiest way is to hold something up and see which way it flies. Or you could do the hair test. Is it off your face or on your face?
When you’ve got the point where it’s off your face turn, hold the string and put your back to the wind. Then you’re in the right position to try flying it. Give the kite to the person launching it and get them to walk back with the kite till there’s lots of string stretched out. Then you keep your back to the wind and they throw it into the air.
6. Be patient
We see people flying kites sometimes and they seem perfectly still in the air. Realistically B is probably not going to get there for a while. It’s more fun if they loop and crash. You could count how long they can keep it hovering for and challenge them to do it for longer?
The wind is so cool to play with. It’s a great way to really notice it. It took us a while to graduate to kites and we found lots of other games to play with the wind on the way. Check out the Playing outside in the wind in winter with kids blog here. A shout out to those polystyrene planes that are in all the shops. You throw them into the wind and they curve round. A great alternative to kites if you don’t have quite enough people free space.
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