School-Age: Hot Air Balloons

Hot Air Balloons have always been a bit of a fascination to me. They are colorful and festive, and there are entire festivals devoted to them! I saw a neat craft for them which ended up being the inspiration to have a weekly program about them for my own curiosity's sake!

Reading:
We read "Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride" by Marjorie Priceman. It actually did have quite a bit of historical information even if the story seemed too fantastical to believe! There actually was a hot air balloon that was launched for the first time in the 18th century, in France, and WAS carrying farm animals!

Discussion:
The kids were FULL of questions this week and we almost didn't have enough time for the crafts! They were so curious how hot air balloons worked and those hands kept raising every time I got to another slide.

True/False:
We played a quick game of true/false to test their knowledge of hot air balloons. Some of it we had covered in our discussion, but most we had not!

Craft:
I had found a neat 3-D hot air balloon craft on Pinterest that originated on the Crafty Morning blog. I found a similar template online and printed out the balloon parts on different colors of paper. That way, the kids could decide what colors they wanted their hot air balloons to be. For the 'baskets', I cut toilet paper rolls into 3 different pieces and painted them. I used pipe cleaners as the 'rope' connectors between the basket and the balloon.

Here are a few of ours that staff made as examples:

Notes:

I've said it before, but one of the greatest things about doing weekly programs for older kids is that you can find a topic that interests you and learn more about it...for work! And, most importantly, you and the kids can have fun in the process!