Hot Air Foil Balloon Acrostics

Making foil balloons and pairing them with Hot Air Balloons as a response to the book The World Needs Who You Were Meant to Be

Are you looking for a fun and QUICK little response to literature that your students are sure to enjoy? Look no further! This post is actually a long time coming. I have done this for years, ever since the Zoom days of distance learning, and I just never wrote about it here on the blog...until now! So here we go.

I read the students the book The World Needs Who You Were Made to Be by Joanna Gaines. It is a relatively new book (published right as the world shut down) and it is just the perfect way to get the kids thinking about their own talents and things they contribute to our classroom society. I had them create a circle map listing all of the traits that they saw in themselves: their insides (personality), outsides (physical), talents, and interests.

Then, using that list, they wrote an acrostic poem about themselves. I specifically asked them to use longer sentences with many describing traits versus just one word. I wanted more "meaty" acrostics!

Next, the kids drew a hot-air balloon to display their acrostics. This went right along with the illustrations in the book, so it tied in perfectly. I gave them a template of a hot-air balloon and then design a beautiful and colorful display. I had them write their poem on a piece of vellum/tracing paper. They then cut that out to the shape of their hot air balloon and glued it on top of the colorful design. That way, you could see the color through the tracing paper but still read the writing! (they did have to go over the pencil with fine point sharpie)

And that was it!

Creating an acrostic poem on a hot air balloon.

Now, I have done this lesson a few times since the day so Zoom, but this year I added a little twist. I had them design a balloon separate from the acrostic. I gave them a template for it this time. Then, using a second template and some tracing paper, I had them write the acrostic on the tracing paper. They were able to cut that out into the shape of the balloon and layer it on top of their artwork. This allowed for the balloon to have a more "design" feel instead of just lines to house the acrostic, as we did in the previous iteration of this lesson.