More than 15,000 kids and 500 mentors have participated in the program. There are many ways and many reasons to build and fly kites. Students can learn to fly a kite that dances to music. Big kites drop candies and toys for young children. Some fly lighted kites at night.
Pros use kites to pull kite buggies, sometimes in races, sometimes to give rides to kids.
Some huge kites, and long kite stacks, have so much pull that they require anchors weighing a ton or more when they fly. According to an article in American Kite Magazine a very long experimental kite stack flown on the prairie in a 25 MPH wind once lifted the front end of a bulldozer off the ground and bent its axle. There are many lessons to be learned from kites. Even very young students can learn how to paint or draw on a kite to depict a topic such as environmental, safety, or cultural themes. Student artists can learn how a kite dance is choreographed to music.