Large group of small circular objects

The sky was bright blue and clear. As I was preparing an outdoor fire for myself and my 2 kids, I noticed a plane flying off to my east. This is extremely common, as we live in the flight path for DCA. However, beyond the aircraft, at an extremely high altitude was several (12-20) white circular objects all moving together going from south to north just as the plane was traveling. At first, I didn’t think much of it but as I was getting the firewood ready I began to think: this is extremely odd. So, I said to my kids: look at this guys, dad has never seen anything like this. My six year old observed the objects too and we were both puzzled by the I thought maybe they could be weather balloons but I do not believe they are released in such a large number. I tried to take a picture but my iPhone would not zoom that far, these objects were hard to see with the naked eye.