NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 5 The Kites — Let us do these activities before we read
Book page 141 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
Have you ever flown a kite or seen someone fly it? Where? When?
Answer
Answer in three short sentences — whether you flew it, where and when.
Sample answer: Yes, I have flown a kite. I flew it on the terrace of my uncle's house in Ahmedabad, with my cousins holding the reel. It was on 14 January, the day of Makar Sankranti, when the whole sky above the city was full of kites from morning till sunset.
If you have never flown one: that is a perfectly good answer too. Say so, and then describe a time you watched — “I have never flown a kite, but every Independence Day I watch the older boys in my street flying them from the roof of the water tank.”
Q2.
Describe the kite—colour(s), shape, design of tail, any other detail.
Answer
Describe it in a fixed order so that nothing is left out: shape → colours → tail → line and reel → anything special.
bright red and yellow, sky blue, striped, chequered, tri-colour
Tail
a long paper tail, two ribbon tails, a curly streamer, small paper bows tied along a string
Other details
a thin bamboo spine, a shiny plastic cover, a wooden reel wound with manjha
Sample answer: My kite was diamond-shaped and about as wide as my arms. It was bright yellow with two red triangles near the nose, and a thin bamboo spine ran down the middle. Its tail was a long red ribbon with three paper bows tied along it, and the tail swung from side to side as the kite climbed. The line was wound on a wooden reel that my brother held.
Q3.
What did you think when you saw the kite up in the sky?
Answer
This question asks for a feeling and a thought, not a description. Begin with “I felt…” or “I thought…”.
Sample answer: When my kite rose above the neighbour's roof I felt proud and a little frightened, because the line was pulling hard at my fingers. Then it went so high that it looked no bigger than a bird, and I thought how wonderful it would be to see my own town from up there — the roofs, the school ground and the road, all made small.
Why this warm-up matters: The very wish you have just written down is the wish the poem is about. Daphne Lister's child looks up at the kites and says, “I wish I were small / And light as air, / I would climb on a kite / And sail up there.”
Q4.
Search the internet for videos on Kite Festivals and watch them with your teacher and classmates. Share the things with your teacher that you saw and what the people were doing.
Answer
Watch with a notebook open and write down three columns while the video plays: what you saw, what people were doing, what you heard.
What I saw
What the people were doing
A sky filled with hundreds of kites of every colour; giant kites shaped like fish, dragons and birds; long streamer tails
Standing on terraces and rooftops flying kites, some in groups
Wooden reels wound with bright thread; stalls selling kites in narrow lanes
One person holding the reel while another lifted the kite and let it go
Children running in open grounds; families with food on the terrace
Taking part in kite-flying competitions and cutting one another's kites
Lighted lantern kites (tukkals) in the night sky
Shouting, clapping, playing music and eating undhiyu, chikki and til laddoos
Sample sentence to share: “In the video I saw the whole sky above Ahmedabad covered with kites, and the terraces were so crowded that no roof was empty. People were flying kites in pairs — one held the reel and the other released the kite — and everyone shouted together whenever a kite was cut.”
Q5.
Would you like to participate in this kind of festival? Why?
Answer
Give a clear yes or no, then two reasons.
Sample answer: Yes, I would love to take part in a Kite Festival. First, it is a festival you enjoy with everybody at once — the whole street is on its roof and no one is alone. Second, flying a kite is a skill: you have to feel the wind, let the line out slowly and pull at the right moment, and I would like to learn to do it well enough to keep my kite up the longest.
A ‘no’ can also be a good answer if you give a reason — for example, that sharp manjha thread hurts birds and people, and you would rather watch the festival than use such thread.
Q6.
What kind of kite would you like to fly?
Answer
Name a kind of kite, say what it looks like, and give a reason.
Kind of kite
What it is like
Diamond-shaped
The common Indian kite — light, cheap and easy to fly. This is the one shown as “commonly seen” on page 150.
Delta
Triangular, with a wide wing; flies steadily even in a light breeze.
Box kite
Made of two open boxes; very strong and needs a good wind.
Rokkaku
A six-sided Japanese kite, often painted with a face or a fish.
Parafoil
Has no sticks at all — the wind fills it like a small parachute.
Sample answer: I would like to fly a big delta kite in the three colours of our flag, with a long white tail. I choose the delta because its wide triangular wing catches even a slow breeze, so it stays up on days when a small diamond kite keeps falling.
Q7.
Look at the picture and complete the sentences. Share your responses with your teacher. (Word box: windy, kite, flying, birds, sky, looking, has ribbons) 1. I can see ___________, ___________ and ___________ in the picture. 2. The weather in the picture is ___________. 3. The kite is ___________ high in the sky. 4. The child is ___________ from below. 5. The tail of the kite ___________.
Answer
The picture on page 141 shows a girl in an orange skirt standing on green grass. She is holding the line of a bright kite that is high above her, two birds are flying beside it, and the sky behind is pale blue with light clouds. Her hair and skirt are blown to one side.
No.
Completed sentence
What in the picture tells you
1
I can see a kite, birds and the sky in the picture.
These are the three things clearly drawn.
2
The weather in the picture is windy.
Her hair and skirt are blowing, and a kite cannot rise without wind.
3
The kite is flying high in the sky.
The kite is far above the girl, at the top of the picture.
4
The child is looking from below.
She stands on the ground with her face turned up.
5
The tail of the kite has ribbons.
A curly ribbon streamer hangs from the bottom of the kite.
Tip: Each blank needs a different kind of word — a naming word in 1, a describing word in 2, an -ing action in 3 and 4, and a whole verb phrase in 5. Match the shape of the blank before you choose.
Q8.
Now, think and answer. List two more things that you want to add to the picture.
Answer
Choose things that would fit naturally into an outdoor kite-flying scene and would make it livelier.
A friend holding the reel, so the girl can run ahead with the line.
More kites of different shapes and colours in the far sky, as on a festival day.
A big neem tree at one side, with its leaves bending in the same wind.
A little dog running after the girl.
A row of terraced houses in the distance with people watching from the roofs.
Sample answer: I would add two more children on the grass, one of them holding the reel, and a row of rooftops far behind with people standing on them and watching. That would turn one girl's afternoon into a whole town's festival.
Q9.
If I were the child, I would ___________.
Answer
The sentence begins If I were…, so it is imagining something that is not real. Finish it with would + a plain verb.
Sample answers:
If I were the child, I would let out more line so that my kite flew even higher than the birds.
If I were the child, I would call my friends and hold a kite race with them.
If I were the child, I would tie a small paper message to the kite line before letting it go up.
Grammar note: we say If I were, not ‘If I was’, when we imagine something untrue. The poem uses the same form — “I wish I were small.”
Q10.
If I were the kite, I would ___________.
Answer
Now imagine being the kite itself, so the answer should be about flying, seeing and feeling from up in the air.
Sample answers:
If I were the kite, I would fly above the clouds and look down at the whole town at once.
If I were the kite, I would never let my line break, so that the child holding me would never be sad.
If I were the kite, I would race the birds and carry the child with me for one whole afternoon.
Keep this in mind: the ‘Let us write’ task on page 149 asks you to write a full paragraph called I am a Kite. The sentence you write here is the first seed of that paragraph.