Weekend at the Beach

Hey guys,
I spent this weekend relaxing at the beach...well sort of. I went to the sand-sculpting festival at Revere Beach on both Saturday and Sunday to do some fish printing, which is just as fun as relaxing. It started out with us struggling to find where to set up. On Saturday we walked all the way down to the sculptures in the burning hot sand and burning hot sun just to realize that we had to walk all the way back to where we came from. The nice thing was that we were able to set up in a pavilion, which meant we were able to stay out of the sun. Luckily, when we were waiting for the rest of our team to arrive on Sunday, we were able to find the table that we used on Saturday and we were able to easily claim it. When we got back we were able to find a picnic table to set up. We covered the table with trash bags and got the fish and paint out. We waited for the children to walk by to ask if they wanted to make a fish print. Some of the children were very excited to make a fish print, but some of them did not want to. Maybe it was the fact that they did not want to touch a dead fish.

On Saturday we got about 10 kids, and Sunday we got about 15 kids. It was great to meet so many children and see how excited they were to do something new. Almost every kid who completed a print had a big smile on their face. No two kids made the same fish, and I think that that is really amazing. On Sunday I found that more kids preferred using two colors and painting the fish half and half. Whereas on Saturday more kids wanted to mix the colors. One of the best things was seeing adults react to the answer "Yes this is a real fish, yes it is really dead" when they asked "Is it real?" Another thing that made Saturday was that this group of people had bought maybe 10 pizzas and 5 sodas for themselves to eat, and they ate near us. They saw us fish printing and they themselves even had a few questions about it, but of course they did not want to try it. The great thing was that they ended up not consuming everything, and towards the end of our shift, they offered us two boxes of pizza, the soda, and cups that they had left over. In the middle of our Sunday shift, Jam'n 94.5 ended up setting up right next to us, so we got to listen to some music as we completed the day. Both days were full of fun, and full of happy children.

And of course, would it really be a fish printing day if you did not get ink all over you?
Til next time,
Amanda