Turtle Races

It was a busy day and we were making a lot of crafts.... (Many thanks to Marilyn of thetoymaker.com who obviously makes oh-so-much more than paper toys...  She also makes a lot of happy kids! )

Here is Natalie, and here is our daily plethora of paper airplanes.












Here is Ry with one of his many other inspired creations.  This one is a dinosaur.








We had a very busy day making all sort of papery things.  There were paper people , a.k.a. paper dolls, (both boys and girls,) which we dressed in their fancy historical costumes... a dog show, (which had a wide variety of dog breeds doing tricks and winning prizes!)
 

We made a paper rabbit and a frog... some fun finger puppets that did a puppet show,




But best of all, we made turtles!

I am not sure "why" exactly, but the turtles were an absolute hit. Before I knew knew it, everyone was coloring one, or two, or three... When we ran out of printed one we began tracing the ones we had made and making our own!

Even teenage Nate got in on the action.

Coloring, I guess, just makes onefeel happy!

For the older of us, who do not color everyday, perhaps the simple act of coloring  makes you feel a little bit like a kid again.  Whatever the reason, everyone was having fun together and was in the mood for playing with, cutting anc coloring and racing ...turtles.  It was a glorious ay of good, old-fashioned, family fun!


When we were done coloring the turtles, Papa George set up the turtle race, and before long they were all off and running!  You will not believe it.  they were running!  This was the really fun part....

You see, no one but George and I really knew what the race would be like and even we were a bit surprised to see it in action.  It was great!  The kids, who had been pulling the turtles they colored and tied a string to around the room, even tying them to helium filled balloons and making "parachuting turtles" that flew up and down and all around the room, or taping them to paper airplanes and making "flying turtles", envisioned that they would be pulling their turtle, pushing it, maybe even running with it to be in the "race" as they lined up and got ready to "GO!"  You can only perhaps imagine their surprise when they were told to simply jiggle the string in their hands to make the turtles run all the way to the chairs and over the finish line!  And boy,  was it a surprise to us all to actually see them all go!

 ON your shell, get ready... GO!

Hooray for Turtle Day!

We ended our day of play reading some books...

(Hooray for pigeons too!)












Last of all, we read a turtle themed book that just happened to be on the shelf..





It is called The Best Father of All, and it is about a little turtle and his dad talking about all the things that fathers of various animals do for their sons.

What a wonderful way to end our Turtle Day!