Building Extravaganza!

I made a rare Saturday appearance yesterday and went all in with a Building Extravaganza! all ages program.

The star of the show was building with Swedish Fish and toothpicks. I had lots of ideas but knew I needed a take-home activity and started looking online. Originally, this was planned for jelly beans, but the store was out, and I’m glad — the Swedish Fish upped the wow factor for the adults and teens. Simple and fun!

Other activities:

• Little Builders. This area was inspired by my coworker’s Little Builders program (similar to Little Chefs). Lots of building toys and materials out for the 0-5 set to build and destroy. A popular choice continues to be empty hot cocoa cans, which we saved from a program last December. It’s now August, and they’re still popular as drums and building materials.
• Family Engineering. I had an activity from this book, but the materials slowly made their way to the Little Builders zone. I love how easy it is to add these ideas to my program. Copy the signs, gather the materials, done.
• Strawbees. I had a few of these kits out, and they were a fun option for teens and older kids when they ran out of Swedish Fish ideas. I’m still not sold, but the more I play with these, the more I get them.

The best part is all of these are activities that can be repeated as part of another program. So many candy possibilities — will Dots work better? What about the original jelly beans? Candy corn? I can’t wait.