Fun in the Sun

Blacks Creek is filled with exciting , energetic and intellectual children. These three attributes were certainly worked out on a hot day here at the Creek. The kids there decided that they would do things by the beach today instead of the field. They were creating huge sand castles and using their imagination to create different but very unique styles of different parts of the sand castles. Some kids decided to create a big four square in the sand and play. That was pretty fun to join in on considering they were really good at the game! They even knew a few tricks I had no idea about. Learning is always fun after all.  A few kids and I created a crab arena in which they were supposed to fight. We had about 10 huge crabs inside of this pit looking hole in the sand, but instead of fighting they just walked all over each other. It was still fun to make some pretty cool and interesting things in the sand.

- Chemar D

Sand, Sweat and Kickball

Down at Blacks Creek there's a really nice big open field full of beautiful green grass that we bring the kids to if they want to take a break from the water. It is a wide open space where me and my group do different activities such as play uncle Sam or night at the museum. But today, the children all decided to play kick ball. We all ran over to the baseball diamond. One by one people were being chosen for teams and soon we were all ready to play. Pitch after pitch was thrown. Kids were running all over the place sometimes even by the bases ! A couple kids were catching the kicks that me and my group kicked. Sand was flying everywhere, people were sweating from running too much but we all still wanted to continue this intense and fun game of kickball. The children were working together and passing the ball accordingly to easily get each other out. They were true strategists and it was very intriguing to see. At the end of the game, the score was 15-16, and my team won !

- Chemar David

Revere Beach Sand Sculpting Festival

Working at the Revere Beach Sand Sculpting Festival this past weekend was an absolute blast!  The works of art created by the competitors were out of this world and quite breathtaking.  I've always enjoyed creating art, but I'm not sure if I would ever have the patience or sheer talent to work with such a difficult and fragile material.  It was amazing to see the transformation of the sculptures over my two days there.  It's hard to believe that a pile of sand could be transformed into realistic faces and larger than life sculptures in such a short amount of time.

Despite the focus of the festival being on the sand sculptures, we caused quite a stir at our own table in the Kids Zone.  Kids, families and people of all ages were interested to see our touch tank and learn about the harbor.  It was great to see so many people interested in what we were talking about and wanting to hold our lobsters, green crabs and massive Jonah crab!  The visitors at our tank were amazed to learn that all of the marine life in our tank were from the harbor.  They were even more surprised to learn that they could be found at Revere Beach as well! In all, it was a great two
days out on the beaches!




Until next time!


~Lindsay Phenix

The "Fish Cookies" Really Work!

Our sea friends.

At the Courageous Sailing Center we were able to catch tons and tons of crabs. There were so many to the point where we had to start letting some go because the touch tank was getting way too crowded. Even the people who stopped by noticed that we had more in the touch tank than usual. There were about 20 green, at least 10 asian shore crabs, and 6 star fishes (one of them was about the size of a hand). Sadly, the only fish we caught so far at this site were through the lobster trap. But I'm determined and sure that we will soon.

A quick picture with our little sea friends before freeing them back into the Harbor.

Making our own bait today.

At Community Boating yesterday we decided to try something new and made our own bait. We had tried the recipe that Annie and her team last year had used as bait made out of 3 simple ingredients; flour, sugar, and water. We mixed all the ingredients together and it turned out as a dough type texture, and then we rolled them into little balls. One of the kids decided to call them "fish cookies". We placed them into the traps, and who knew?! It actually worked. After we had used the "fish cookies" as bait we caught a large amount of fishes in the traps. It was a fun activity to do, it was a little twist to our envioronmental class. It was a fishing, crabbing, and cooking class all in one! Today was another hot, yet fun and interesting day. Ending my week well. Looking forward to next week, to see what else we can catch with these "fish cookies".

Our finished results: "Fish cookies"

Catch you later,

Nhu