{"id":221739,"date":"2026-04-07T09:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/221739\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:24:09","slug":"orlando-kite-festival-brings-tons-of-family-fun-and-stem-concepts-for-kids-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/221739\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Kite Festival brings tons of family fun and STEM concepts for kids \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you love flying kites and a family-fun atmosphere, then you should check out the 3rd Annual Orlando Kite Festival<\/a> this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Orange County Public School Academic Center for Excellence<\/a> will host the event, which features STEM activities, a literacy lounge, food trucks and local vendors. Don\u2019t have a kite? No problem. The first 100 kids will receive a free kite and someone to help with assembly before flying it.<\/p>\n

Dr. Celina Dozier, a UCF professor teaching environmental engineering, said she uses the festival to introduce STEM concepts to children \u201cin a very fun and unique way.\u201d As it turns out, kites are an excellent example of those concepts at work.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/p>\n

Orlando Kite Festival<\/p>\n

Dr. Celina Dozier, a UCF professor teaching environmental engineering, is the founder and creator of the Orlando Kite Festival. (Courtesy Orlando Kite Festival)<\/p>\n

\u201cKites fly because of lift, drag, thrust, all different forces that are acting on the kite to get it to go up, to stay in the air, to have it come down,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, there\u2019s Bernoulli\u2019s principle, balancing those different pressures and forces in the air. That\u2019s why we love kites.\u201d<\/p>\n

But teaching wasn\u2019t her initial goal.<\/p>\n

She simply wanted to fly kites with her son.<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville native had fond memories of attending the Texas ABC Kite Fest, which began in 1929, with her husband when she was in graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin.<\/p>\n

She never imagined she\u2019d be doing her own version in Orlando.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I was] just thinking about something to do with [him] and how much I enjoyed the festival there. I was like, why not bring it here?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Free<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the Orlando Kite Festival<\/p>\n

Free kites are available to the first 100 kids at the Orlando Kite Festival. (Courtesy Orlando Kite Festival)<\/p>\n

The Orlando Kite Festival is returning to familiar grounds in Parramore, where it took place in 2024 and 2025. Dozier added a few new wrinkles this time around, with more vendors and a family arcade space.<\/p>\n

Sponsors include Winnie Palmer Hospital, Orlando Health, WUCF and their presenting sponsor, iHeartRadio.<\/p>\n

With so many big names on tap for the third iteration, she\u2019s working hard to create a bigger and better festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want this event to grow in size and impact every single year,\u201d Dozier said. That impact includes working with nonprofit organizations in the community, like Book\u2019nic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Book\u2019nic is a nonprofit focused on promoting reading and literacy education for children in Central Florida. They\u2019ll have a dedicated space at the festival featuring local authors and family-friendly activity stations.<\/p>\n

She advises those who plan on attending to register at orlandokitefestival.com<\/a>, but \u201cif you wake up one day and decide you want to come to the Kite Festival, [you] can do that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you go<\/p>\n

The Orlando Kite Festival is from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. April 11 at 701 W. Livingston St. in Orlando. The event is free and open to the public. More information: orlandokitefestival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you love flying kites and a family-fun atmosphere, then you should check out the 3rd Annual Orlando…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[104,28,114,1335,139,141,140,105,14291,109,76687,106],"class_list":["post-221739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-entertainment","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-outdoors","tag-parenting-and-family","tag-social","tag-social-entertainment","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}