LAGUNA NIGUEL : Students Hit New Heights in Education

Floating high above their playground Thursday morning, the students of Cheryl Barnes’ fifth-grade class at George White Elementary School learned that hot-air ballooning truly is a “wonderful way to travel.”

In recent weeks, Barnes’ class, known as “the Barney Bunch,” has been doing a variety of activities associated with the popular core literature selection “The Twenty-One Balloons” by William Pene DuBois.

The tethered balloon ride at the Laguna Niguel school was literally the high point to the thematic language arts lesson.

“In a balloon, you can decide only when to start and usually when to stop,” student Katie Schmeltzer told her classmates, reading one of her favorite passages from the 180-page book. “The rest is left entirely to nature. How fast you will go and where is left to the winds. It is a wonderful way to travel from your home to school.”

Before starting the rides for the 26 students comprising “the Barney Bunch,” balloonist Russell Armstrong inflated the 80-foot-high balloon and showed the students just how the fire-charged hot air works to make it rise.

As the black balloon with yellow, orange and red stripes rose gracefully, the many students gathered for the demonstration sighed in awe. The balloon, tied to three automobiles parked in the field, climbed to about 50 feet during the demonstration.

“It’s like Puff the Magic Dragon,” said fifth-grader Nicki Roknifard, whose class will soon be reading the book.

Her classmates Matt Chicoine and John Paul San Pedro were equally impressed.

“It’s all crumpled up and then it comes up as a huge balloon,” Chicoine said.

“It’s exciting, it’s really, like, big,” San Pedro added.

High above in the balloon, students, using a microphone, said they felt like they were “floating in a dream.”

“This is kind of cool,” said Adriana Olsen, who had previously been nervous about the flight.

To help make learning more fun and meaningful for her students, Barnes said, she weaved the themes of hot-air balloons and the principals of flight into all her recent class lessons. Among other things, students have learned the history of hot-air balloons and the scientific process behind flight. Students also wrote poems about hot-air balloons, did balloon math and created balloon models and mosaics in art class. There were even “balloon” aerobics in physical education class.

“It makes teaching so much fun because the kids are so into this,” Barnes said. “There is nothing like actively living something instead of just reading it in a book.”

While Barnes created a similar thematic instruction plan last year, the only thing missing was the actual balloon ride at the end. This year, the parents of Katie Schmeltzer were able to arrange the demonstration with Armstrong, who is their cousin.

“This is a terrific way to reinforce the instruction that Mrs. Barnes has provided as part of her whole language unit on ‘The Twenty-one Balloons,’ ” school Principal Dave Gerhard said. “This activity is a perfect example of the thematic instruction that is evident in our schools and classrooms today.”