Kidding Around: Fairy Tale Science

In keeping with my New Year's resolution to get back to blogging, I figured I'd share one of my most recent school age programs with you all. It was a part of my year round series for Grades K-2, which I call "Kidding Around". We vary themes throughout the year but STEM always makes several appearances. Science programs are fun, relatively inexpensive programs that the kids always seem to enjoy. For our February meeting of "Kidding Around" our theme was one I've seen several places over the years: Fairy Tale Science. It was an hour log program that consisted of three stations for groups of kids to rotate through.

Stations:

Build a house for the Three Little Pigs

Supplies needed: Straws, Popsicle Sticks, Tape, Legos (optional)

Description: At this station the kids were instructed to build the strongest house they could out of the provided materials. The majority of kids used different techniques to tape the Popsicle sticks together to form houses, which worked pretty well. Interestingly enough this group really didn't make much use of the Legos.


Build a boat for the 3 Billy Goats Gruff

Supplies needed: Aluminum Foil, Cups, Plates, 

Description: The idea behind this station was for the kids to explore concepts such as weight, density and buoyancy as they make a "boat" for the Billy Goats Gruff. At first they were mainly relying on the aluminum foil but with a little prompting they were able to use the cups and plates in some very interesting ways. I especially liked the boat made of three cups attached to the bottom of the plate to form a sort of floating platform.

Build a parachute for Jack

Supplies needed: Coffee filters, Tissue paper, Paper lunch bags, Lego Minifigures

Description: That Beanstalk is pretty high and Jack needs a safe way down. The kids were asked to provide it by building him a parachute. This allows them to learn about concepts such as lift, gravity and surface area. The coffee filters were the most popular material, but the paper bags worked pretty well too. Our Lego minifigures made a terrific stand in for Jack!


Overall the kids seemed to have a good time, and I think they learned a lot too. Feel free to use this idea with the kids at your school, home or library!

Kidding Around: Winter Crafts

Now that the holidays are over and we are in the thick of another winter I thought sharing some winter crafts we did at a recent meeting of Kidding Around would be appropriate. There is still plenty of time to use them in winter programming. It is also before the point when we are all just a little sick of winter, which definitely a big plus.

As usual for Kidding Around, I registered for 12 kids in Grades K-2. I tried to keep the crafts simple enough that the kids could do them with very little guidance. I also tried to use spend as little on materials as possible. All I ended up having to buy specifically for this program was cotton balls and Q-Tips (about $4).

Here is what we did: 

 

Snowglobes

 

Supplies needed:
Construction paper/Tagboard
Cotton Balls
Crayons
Glue

This is a craft I found on Pinterest. These snowglobes are an adaptation of the pom pom painted ones I found on Crafty Morning. The top portions of the snowglobes were cut out by tracing a paper plate on tagboard. The bottom pieces were cut out freehand. I allowed the kids to decorate however they wished using paint, crayons, cotton balls, etc.

Q-Tip Snowflakes

 

Supplies needed:
Construction paper
Q-Tips (I used about at least a 100 with my group)
White Paint
Glue

I first saw this craft at Instructables. The great thing about it is it requires absolutely no preparation. It also leaves a lot of room for creativity. All the kids came up with their own versions of snowflakes, which was very nice to see.

Tape Resist Snowflakes

 

Supplies needed:
Tape
Paint
Construction Paper

Painting and tape are always a winning combination with kids, so tape resist art is a favorite at my programs. As a bonus it teaches a little bit about art concepts (positive vs. negative space), and even a little physical science (the paint will not go through the tape). Little Bins for Little Hands gave me the idea to make snowflakes.

Winter Themed Bingo Dauber Art

 

Supplies needed:
Printouts (found at The Resourceful Mama)
Bingo Daubers

I always like to use my bingo daubers when I have smaller groups, so this was a great chance to bring them out. These printables definitely came in handy in keeping some of the kids busy while I was helping others with the more complex crafts.

All in all I thought this program went quite well. The kids seemed to have fun and I got a lot of positive feedback from parents. There are so many craft ideas out there and never enough time to sort through them, so I hope you find these few useful. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

Kidding Around: Going Batty

In honor of Bat Appreciation Week (from April 3rd until April 9th this year), this month's meeting of Kidding Around celebrated the bat. The winged creature, not the piece of sports equipment.

This was originally an idea I used during the summer when the CSLP theme was "Dream Big, Read." My primary objective when I do celebration programs like this one is to get the kids into the library to have fun. The secondary goal for this program was to give them a little basic knowledge about bats.

We started out by reading a simple nonfiction book about bats. I chose "Bats" by J. Angelique Johnson, because the simple text and clear facts seemed perfect for this age group (Grades K-2).

After reading, we talked a little about the facts in the book. I made sure we discussed echolocation in particular, because it was the topic of the two games I had planned.

The first game involved using my rhythm sticks to practice locating via sound. I gave each kid two rhythm sticks and had them stand in a circle. One child stood in the middle and was our "bat". The bat closed their eyes while I chose a child to bang their rhythm sticks together. When the bat opened their eyes they needed to guess who had made the sound. After a few rounds I made it more difficult, by instructing all rest of the children to bang at a slow pace while the chosen child hit their sticks faster than the others. Adding this "background noise" was meant to make the kids see how difficult it can be to isolate a single sound.

Next, we moved on to our second game, a modified version of Marco Polo that I found here. One child is the bat, who closes their eyes and calls "Beep!". The rest of the kids are insects, who reply "Buzz, Buzz!". The bat's goal is to find the insects and tag them. This provided an additional lesson on how movement might play into echolocation. It also gave the kids an opportunity to burn off a little extra energy.

Our final activity was using a bat template to explore positive/negative space. I gave each child a bat template cut out of cardstock. They needed to place it on a white sheet of paper, and paint over or around it to create a bat out of white space.

One child diligently working on her bat :)

We ended the program with juice, fruit snacks (because bats eat fruit), and cupcakes topped with bat cutouts. Overall I'd say this program went pretty well. I think the kids enjoyed themselves and learned a little at the same time. Many of the bat books I put out were checked out after the program, which is always a good sign!

Next month's Kidding Around is a Star Wars Party. Any related tips and ideas are more than welcome. You can contact me here, on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets) or by email at marrak at libcoop dot net.

Kidding Around: Big Game Bash

In honor of the recent big football game I decided to make this month's Kidding Around a football themed party. Football is pretty popular in most communities, and despite my lack of sports aptitude I wanted to make sure I tapped into this interest. Even though the big game is over, I figured this program would be useful to share for any other libraries going with this year's sports themed CSLP. As I mentioned, I am not a particularly "sporty" person at all so my first thought when planning this program was "This should be interesting...".

To start planning my first step was to come up with some simple games that could be done with a soft football. I figured  activities that involved "playing football" were kind of a must at this kind of program. The kids who attend "Kidding Around" are still pretty young (in Kindergarten through 2nd grade) so I also wanted to keep it as easy and active as possible. After that I filled out the rest of the program with some classic kid's games that I gave a football themed twist.

I find beginning a program with an active game gets the kids engaged and breaks the ice with any new attendees, so we started out by dividing into pairs and throwing some soft mini footballs back and forth. The goal was to throw it back and forth as many times as possible without dropping it. This definitely proved a little more difficult for the kids than I initially anticipated, but still seemed to be something they all enjoyed doing. After that I provided a little easier challenge and we took turns throwing the footballs through a hula hoop I held a few feet in front of them.

Next we "practiced making field goals", a.k.a. played a football themed version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I called it Pin the Football on the Goalpost, and here are my  templates for the goalpost and footballs in case you would like to use them.

Our final game was one of the highlights of the program: a football themed version of Bingo . I created this game with this awesome picture Bingo creator. This particular Bingo creator is one of my favorite resources for this age group because their reading levels vary too widely to play themed versions of Bingo that involve reading. Picture Bingo works great with struggling readers of any age, and would also be perfect to use with ESL students.

Craft and snack time closed out the program as usual. Our craft was a coloring page with a football helmet and jersey, because I really couldn't find any more involved football themed crafts I wanted to do with them. Because it is a Big Game party the snacks were the focus at this point anyways. I chose chocolate cupcakes (topped with printable football cutouts), chips, pretzels and popcorn.

All in all this was an inexpensive and fun program. The only costs involved were for snacks (about $5) and squishy footballs ($1 each at my local Dollar Store). I would definitely repeat this program again in the future.

If you have any questions about this program you can reach me in the comments or on Twitter (@MsKellyTweets). Next month's Kidding Around is a birthday party for Dr. Seuss, so Seuss related program ideas are also greatly appreciated!

Kidding Around: Snowy Science

I haven't done a ton of science programming as part of my monthly Kindergarten through 2nd grade programs (aka Kidding Around), so this month I decided to remedy this with a program I called "Snowy Science". The basis of this program was for the kids to explore science concepts related to snow/winter.

When I originally planned to do this program I had no way of knowing I would face two slight difficulties in executing it. First of all, it ended up falling the day after a month long renovation project that had the library closed for certain days and hours. I think this had a serious impact on program registration and attendance. Secondly, the weather had been unseasonably warm and decidedly not snowy at all. With no indoor freezer storage at my library, that fact seriously limited my options for activities involving actual ice/snow.

Despite these obstacles, I'd say this program worked out pretty well. Registration was down (four kids attended), but it made for a small group that had a lot of fun. I was able to buy ice at the last minute and find a few different materials to fill in as "snow".

What we did:  

Exploring ice

 

Image from openclipart.org

 

This was the only portion of the program that actually involved cold. The basic idea behind the activity was to explore a few scientific concepts and get practice making predictions and observations. I gave each child a piece of ice and a cup of room temperature water. We began by talking about what would happen to the ice if it was put in the water. We talked about what ice is and about the states of matter. Finally, we put the ice in the water and observed it melting. Then I brought out some hot water for comparison. Once again we made our predictions and performed the same experiment. The kids were engaged and seemed to understand most of what we were talking about so I considered this experiment a big success.

Building marshmallow snowmen

 

Some of my favorite activities with kids involve building with food, so it was no surprise I incorporated that into this program. The idea was to explore building, engineering and gravity by stack and building with marshmallows. I first let the kids see what they could build on their own, and then allowed them to advantage of toothpicks. If I had a bigger group of kids I might have incorporated teamwork skills by having them work to build a large snowman together.

Parachute play with "snowballs"

 

Image from openclipart.org

 

I decided to incorporate my parachute into this program because I had never done it with elementary aged kids and it sounded like a lot of fun. It actually does involve some science because it is a fun way to explore the concepts of forces and energy. To fit in with our winter theme I crumpled up paper to make "snowballs" and had the kids bounce them on the chute. We talked about the speed of the balls as we bounced them at different rates, and about the forces involved in making them fly as high as possible. Definitely a highlight of the program!

 

Shaving cream art

We ended the program with the messiest part, painting with "snow" (aka shaving cream). This activity actually involves the scientific principles of light, dark and color mixing. We started out simple, each child got a plate full of shaving cream. Before doing anything I asked them to make a few observations about it. Observations included "It's white." and "It's soft." among others. Next I brought out my food coloring. I had the kids start out with one color food coloring. We talked about how much to add, and what would make the color a lighter or darker shade. Finally, they each choose a second color to add and make a new color. With this new creation they moved on to the art portion of this"STEAM" program. As you can see from the above picture this was a very "hands on" activity.

Final observations

For a small and simple program this was a lot of fun. The cost was pretty low as well (around $10). All I had to purchase was the ice, a bag of marshmallows and a few containers of shaving cream. I will definitely keep this one in mind for the future because I think it would work even better with a larger group.

That's it for this month's "Kidding Around". Next month we are having a "Big Game Bash" so any suggestions for football themed activities are greatly appreciated!

Kidding Around: Bubble Bash

For our May meeting of my K-2nd program, Kidding Around, I turned to a perennial kid favorite: bubbles. It is practically scientific fact that kids of all ages love bubbles. Bubbles are relatively mess-free and blowing them (or trying to) can hold the attention of even the youngest children.

Program Overview:

• 9 kids attended
• Age group: K-2nd graders. 
• Total Cost: $10-$20  

Introduction: "Big Bad Bubble"

I've been trying to include more books in my school age programming in an effort to promote reading. To this end we started our bubble bash by reading one of my favorite bubble related books, "Big Bad Bubble" by Adam Rubin.

I love the premise of this book: the monsters in La La Land are afraid of bubbles. It is pretty funny, and definitely has a good message about facing fears. It made me so happy to hear a little girl repeating "This is so funny!" as I read.

Next, we moved on to the main portion of our program: playing with bubbles. This consisted of three different activities.

Bubble Activity #1: Making our own bubble solution

Supplies needed:
Bowl of water for each child
Plenty of dishsoap
Pipe cleaners
Straws

Cost: $3 for the pipe cleaners

I gave each child a bowl of water and asked how it was similar and different to bubble solution (hooray for scientific observation!). My favorite answer was "It would taste gross!".

Next I added soap to their bowls and had them stir it in. Once everyone had bubble solution we experimented with making bubble wands out of straws and pipe cleaners. We asked questions as we experimented, such as "What kind of wand would make a big bubble?" and "What would happen if we taped straws together and blew bubbles?"

Bubble Activity #2: Bubble Painting

Supplies needed:
Food coloring or paint
Paper

Cost: None

To paint with bubbles we added food coloring to our solution and placed paper on top of the resulting colored bubbles. I've seen this online various places and did it with the kids at last year's summer reading finale party. The kids seemed to enjoy it, even though some colors didn't come out on paper as clearly as others. For alternate methods of painting with bubbles, see Artful Kids.

Bubble Activity #3: Giant Bubbles

Supplies needed: 
Giant bubble wands
Other bubble blowing devices
Super strong homemade bubble solution:
                 1 gallon of water
                 1 cup Dawn Dishsoap
                 4 tablespoons of glycerin (near the cake decorating supplies at Michaels)

Cost:
About $6 for the glycerin

I brought out the giant bubble wands I bought on sale last summer at Michaels. The ones I have are pretty similar to this one. If you don't want to buy one there are also many tutorials I found online for making your own version. I also had some play tennis rackets and larger bubble wands for the kids to use.

As expected, this was the highlight of the afternoon. At the end of the program I asked the kids which kind of bubble wand was their favorite and the giant one was the unanimous winner.

All in all this was a great way to end "Kidding Around" for the school year. Summer reading is coming fast, and I look forward to updating you on all our fun programs!

Kidding Around: Dinosaur Party

The theme for this month's "Kidding Around" (my monthly K-2nd program) was a perennial kid favorite: Dinosaurs!

As I usually do for this program, I registered 12 kids. It was so popular I ended up allowing in a few extra, bringing the total to 15. I also had a few younger siblings attend, who joined in the fun where they could. It was definitely the best attended K-2nd program I've done in a while.

Here's what we did:

I started out by reading Natasha Wing's book "How to Raise a Dinosaur". It has some fun lift-the-flap elements and mentions the word poop at least once, so I figured it would be a hit with this age group. They seemed to enjoy it, although I do think a little more of the visual humor is evident when reading it one on one.

Next we played a game I called "Dinosaur Tail Tag". It was basically a version of tag where as people are tagged they join arms with the tagger, leading to a large snakelike grouping. I said we were making a giant dinosaur tail.

Our second game was "Pin the Horn on the Triceratops". I used a picture of a Triceratops from openclipart.org and used Paint to remove one of the horns. I then copied and pasted the horn multiple times into a separate document. Here is what I ended up creating: Dinosaur and Horns.

After that we did our craft, which was reassembling a cut out dinosaur skeleton. I used a template from a previous summer reading program to cut out a complete set of skeleton pieces for each child. The children were then encouraged to reassemble the dinosaur and draw around it as they wished.

We ended the program with a snack, which is always a highlight for most kids. However this time it was particularly fun. In addition to Kroger brand dinosaur fruit snacks, we enjoyed eating "dinosaur poop" (a.k.a. chocolate covered jumbo marshmallows). This seemed to be a huge hit with the kids. I even heard positive feedback from parents about it the next day. Definitely something I would do again.

As the kids left they could take home a "If I had a Pet Dinosaur" worksheet I printed from Deceptively Educational.

Next month's "Kidding Around" will be our "Bubble Bash". As the name implies, the plan is to do some experiments and activities involving bubbles. Looking forward to updating you all about how it goes!

Kidding Around: Spring Crafts

Spring is finally almost here. The weather here in Michigan has warmed up (for the moment) and flowers don't seem to be far behind.

In honor of this I figured I'd share some of the Spring themed crafts we did at a recent meeting of my K-2nd program: Kidding Around. Hopefully they come in handy as you plan any last minute Spring themed programs. They are all chosen based on being low cost and easy to prepare.

Craft 1: Bird's Nest

Materials needed:
Construction paper
Yarn
Crayons or pencils
Glue
Paper plates

Cost: None (all materials I had on hand)

This craft was based on one found at the site Buggy and Buddy. It involved gluing pieces of yarn to half a paper plate and decorating with construction paper birds. I cut the yarn and plates beforehand but the kids drew and cut out the birds themselves. They only addition I provided was the sticker eyes. I don't know about you but these birds ones remind me of Mo Willem's Pigeon.

Craft 2: Shredded Paper Sheep

Materials needed:
Shredded paper
Glue
Black construction paper

Cost: None (all materials I had on hand)

I found this sheep craft at Housing a Forest. The only preparation I had to do for this one was gather the shredded paper from the library shredder. The kids cut out the sheep's head, arms and legs themselves. I let them use our little glue cups as tracing templates for the heads.

Craft 3: Fruit Loop Flowers and Rainbows

Materials needed: 
Fruit Loops
Glue
Rainbow printout
Flower stem template

Cost: About $2 for the Fruit Loops

The Fruit Loop Flowers idea was found at Crafty Morning. I made my own template of stems and grass so that the kids didn't have to spend time drawing their own. To provide another craft option I also brought out an old rainbow printout I had used with my storytime kids.

Craft 4: Puffy Paint Peep

Materials needed:
Glue
Shaving Cream
Paint
Peep printout

Cost: About $2 for the shaving cream

With the Peep's Science program I did for the 3rd-6th graders I think I've had peeps on the brain. This idea for puffy paint peeps also came from Crafty Morning. I thought it would be a fun art/sensory activity to use at this program.

The kids had a great time doing these crafts. It was a fun and low key way to bring in Spring at the library. I'm always looking for craft ideas and would love to hear any you may have!

Kidding Around: Life Sized Chutes and Ladders

For this month's Thrive Thursday blog hop, I am sharing a life sized Chutes and Ladders program I did yesterday at our monthly program Kidding Around. I was inspired to do this program by Amy at the Show Me Librarian and Anna at Future Librarian Superhero. I basically followed the same plan Amy and Anna did at their programs, with a few minor changes. It was surprisingly fun, easy and inexpensive. The only money I spent was for a bag of fun sized candy to pass out if kids made it through the game board twice.

Supplies used:
Yarn
Colored paper
Tagboard
Masking tape
Candy, tattoos and leftover goodies
Books leftover from summer reading

Set up: 
Here is the gameboard I created. It is 7 pieces of paper long and 7 wide. I used yarn for chutes and masking tape for ladders.

Modifications:
One of the minor changes I made involved the spinner. Instead of a premade spinner or online version I made my own using a template I created. I printed it out on tagboard, then used a brass fastener to attach an arrow I cut free hand. Amazingly this homemade spinner held up until the very last spin by the very last player! My spinner used numbers rather than colors, which I liked because it helps reinforce math skills.

Another way my program was a little different from Amy's and Anna's programs is I did two rounds of prizes. The first was a book, which they could pick from my leftover summer reading stash. The second was their choice of candy, sticker or assorted goodie.

Tips and Tricks:

• Having numbered name tags for each child definitely comes in handy.
• 12 kids is probably the maximum number I would have participate. I had 8 and I think much more than that would be a little chaotic.
• K-2 was a good age group for this program. The kids seemed to understand the game pretty easily and have a lot of fun.
• Masking tape arrows that show the direction of game play are very helpful for some kids.
• The second round of prizes I did was somewhat unnecessary. By the end of the second round, some kids had to leave and our time was running out. If I were to do this program again I would stick to one kind of prize.

For more great school age program ideas head on over to this month's Thrive Thursday roundup. It is hosted by Angie at Fat Girl Reading. You can also learn more about Thrive Thursday at the Thrive Thursday blog, or check out Thrive Thursday on Pinterest and Facebook!

Kidding Around: Winter Beach Party

For this month's meeting of my K-2nd grade program, Kidding Around, I decided to hold a beach party. I figured it would provide a fun contrast to our winter weather. Little did I realize the extent of this contrast: Our beach party was held during a week where the temperature (not including wind chill) stood firm in the single digits. I'd say a little beach related fun was sorely needed.

To start our party I talked with the kids about what they like about the beach. We are a small town right on the water, so it wasn't surprising that the kids were all big fans.

Next we played a pretty laid back game of volleyball with a beach ball originally purchased for use with my parachute during storytime. With this age group I didn't bother with having them keep score. I just wanted them to have fun and get some energy out.

We continued the fun with game often played at beaches and pools: Marco Polo. To allow all kids to have turns I often had multiple kids being Marco at the same time. This pretty much wound up being hiliarious.

Our next activity was "Pin the Sunglasses on the Sun". I used images from OpenClipart and cut and laminated the pieces. I have adapted "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" for many purposes, and I have to say it is always a hit with this age group.

We finished up by watercolor painting seashells and having a snack of cookies, tropical fruit snacks, goldfish and Hawaiian Punch.

It was definitely a lot of fun, and did put us in a warm frame of mind for awhile. If only Elsa could do something fix our current state of deep freeze permanently.

Thanks for reading! Sending warm thoughts to you all :)

Kidding Around: Elephant and Piggie Party

A new book in the "Elephant and Piggie" series was recently released. In my Mo Willems worshiping brain this meant one thing: We needed to have an Elephant and Piggie Party!

Registration issues and scheduling conflicts meant I couldn't hold this party quite as early as I would have liked, so I was especially anxious to celebrate with the kids. It was very appropriate that the title of the new "Elephant and Piggie" book is "Waiting is Not Easy".

When the day finally arrived, I think this program went really well. I had 12 K-2nd grade kids attend, which is our standard registration limit for my monthly programs for that age group. Everyone seemed to have a great time.

Here's what we did:

I started out by reading "Waiting is Not Easy". The basis of the book is that Piggie has a surprise for Gerald the Elephant. Gerald must wait for the surprise, which is revealed at the very end of the book. As I read the story I prompted the kids to guess what the surprise was. Because the surprise is so awesome I will make you go get the book to find out what it is. No spoilers here!

Our next activity was an Elephant Race. I modified the ideas from this party game site. I broke the kids into two teams and we did a relay race. Each team was given a beach ball and had to use their arms as "trunks" to push it across the room.

Next we did Elephant and Piggie Picture Bingo. I used a picture bingo generator to create picture bingo cards using clip art related to Elephant and Piggie book. For instance, in one book Elephant and Piggie make a reader say "BANANA", so I used a picture of a banana.

Like most of my programs this one finished up with a craft and a snack. Our craft was Elephant and Piggie paper bag puppets. I used patterns found on The Dilley Dally for Elephant and Piggies faces. For some reason the Elephant Template wasn't showing up, so I had to copy and paste to create my own copy.

Here's an example of the end result:

For snack we had cupcakes with pink and blue frosting, fruit snacks and blue Hawaiian Punch (aka Elephant Juice).

While finishing their snacks, the kids could peruse the other Elephant and Piggie books.

Feel free to use my ideas for your own Elephant and Piggie Party. For even more book character party ideas check out this wonderful Book Character Parties Roundup by Jbrary. Thanks for reading!

Kidding Around: Pumpkin Painting!

It's October already, which in my library can only mean one thing: Pumpkin Painting!

We do pumpkin painting once a year as part of my monthly program for Grades K-2, Kidding Around. It is a fun program that takes relatively little preparation, so if you aren't already doing it at your library I highly recommend trying it.

Here are some tips and tricks:
1. Check out local vegetable stands to get deals on pumpkins. They are less expensive than stores and more likely to give you a discount for a good cause.
2. Give kids a pattern to plan out their pumpkin design before hand. Here is the one I used. It is a great way to encourage kids to think ahead.
3. Old adult sized t shirts make great paint smocks for kids. The donated stash we have at my library gets a great deal of use, and is definitely brought out at pumpkin painting time.
4. If possible, let kids keep their pumpkin at the library while it dries. I usually ask parents to come and pick up the next day. While pumpkins are waiting for pickup they make great decoration for the library.
5. I have kids draw a number to choose which order they pick their pumpkin. This seems to be a pretty fair way to determine who gets which one.
5. Sizewise, I usually limit this program to about 12 kids. This works for us, especially because I am the only librarian running the program. With more adult assistance you could definitely do it with a bigger group.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the pictures I took at this program:

Our next Kidding Around will be an Elephant and Piggie Party! We will be celebrating the release of the latest book "Waiting Is Not Easy!" Any ideas you have for this or any other program are greatly appreciated.