After seeing this Thanksgiving STEM activity done by Carly and Adam over on Instagram, I just KNEW I had to do this with my son! Not only was this activity a blast, but we both learned some new and interesting things about the origins of the balloons of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I had no idea they had such a neat story behind them! And for someone like me who LOVES to watch the parade every year, it was right up my alley!
This Thanksgiving STEM activity centers around the balloons themselves, but we also tied in language arts with the FANTASTIC book, Balloons Over Broadway: The Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade, by the incredibly talented Melissa Sweet.
Prior to reading, we watched this short video about marionettes so my son had a decent understanding about how they moved and worked. If you have a real marionette or can get your hands on one, even better! I am kicking myself that we never bought one during our family trip to Prague because they were everywhere, but the video worked just fine.
Then we went on to read Balloons Over Broadway. This book is a treasure. It’s no wonder it received the Robert F. Sibert award for best informational book and the Golden Kite Award for illustration in 2012. Sweet’s simple story telling and perfect mix of artistic media keeps children (and adults!) engaged for the duration of the book and includes even more details at the end for further learning.
I learned some interesting things I did not know before! Like, did you know that in the early days of using balloons they would just release them at the end of the parade and then wherever they ended up landing, someone would mail it back and receive a free gift from Macy’s?! And the reason Tony Sarg was commissioned to create them in the first place was because some of the live animals that were in the parade were actually scaring the children, so Macy’s wanted him to create puppets instead since he was a master puppet maker! So neat!
After reading, we watched this video about Tony Sarg, which my son found fascinating. I love it because it shows video of Sarg, his original window displays at Macy’s, which the book talks about, and the first balloons of the parade.
We watched this video as a brief history of the parade and then this one, which get into more detail on the process of making the balloons today.
Now comes in the fun STEM tie-in! The challenge for this activity is for students too create a balloon for the parade that does not need helium but stays upright on its own! This particular resource from Carly and Adam STEM includes a STEM journal for students to use to plan, test, and improve their designs.
My son decided he was going to make Lucario from Pokemon as his balloon! First, we identified the problem and then he imagined how to solve it. He then took his ideas and made a concrete plan. Just like the creation of the real balloons for the parade, this is done with a sketch. My son planned out his idea for the balloon and his idea for how to keep it upright. I had a variety of materials available for him to choose from. Here was his initial idea:
So he went to work but found that when he just taped his straw legs on, they went in at an angle since the side of the balloon was at an angle:
So he went “back to the drawing board” and brainstormed on a solution. He decided to fold down the tops of the straws instead and tape them, which worked! He also decided to reinforcing the straws with popsicle sticks, which worked even better. All him and his ideas!
If you teach in a classroom, your students can present their balloons in an actual parade and they can even vote on them using voting cards including in the resource! Since it is just my son, I downloaded and printed out this photo of Broadway by Craig Adderley that I got from Pexels.com and enlarged it to make a backdrop!
I hope you add this Thanksgiving STEM activity to your plans for the future! Wishing everyone a safe and restful holiday!
Happy Thanksgiving!
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