Beth Wise: Hi, I am Beth Wise, I am owner of Scribbler's Ink, educational resources company in Orlando Florida. We have been talking a lot about educational materials and educational activities but ones that are really fun and particularly for the summer. So as mother of small children and having worked with many small children we are doing all things that are around the water today. The next thing we are going to do is really looking at some animals that live a little far from us up in the Arctic and one of them is the penguin. As I talk with the children I always have them pretend to be penguins and talk about what penguins look like and how they walk. So I talk about that and if I have a picture to show them a penguin I would. The only other material that you are going to need for this activity are three hula hoops or four hula hoops, maybe four hula hoops and that's it.

You want to go outside to an area that's open because kids are going to be racing, so find a nice, grassy, smooth area outside that's safe for the children. So we are outside and we have got the kids lined up and we are going to have a race. So I have got kids lined up, if I have three children, I have them lined side by side and I am going to use the hula hoops down at the opposite end from where the children are. The children are now going to become human penguins. So I have them stand at the start line, I have put them their wings beside them with their hands out. Now I have them put their feet close together because penguins have tiny little feet that always walk in small steps. So the children stand like a penguin and then I remind them that penguins live in the polar area and one of their favorite places to be is on the coldest place which is an iceberg. So I take my hula hoops and those become each of the penguins icebergs. I set them at the opposite end, so they each have their own iceberg and then on a count of three, one, two, three the penguins run down to their icebergs and that's what we do for the penguin race. It's a great activity, it also brings in a little bit of educational twist, so the kids know a little bit about penguins, their habitats and the kind of environment that they live and they are like icebergs which is fun for kids. So we are going to do this cold activity with the kids and then we are going to come back just a little bit closer to the United States and we are going to be talking about some warm weather animals and the one that we are going to focus on is the crab. I love crabs because crabs have big pinchers, so I immediately let the kids pretend that they big pinchers and act like they are crabs. So we have got our pinchers on and we are back at the start line and this time I am going to have them walk like a crab. Now there are two ways for them to do that. One is for them to lay on their back and then put their hands behind them and pull up and walk that way or what we are going to do today is have the kids walk with all force on the ground, their heads up walking sideways like crabs like to do.

So the crabs are going to start at the starting line and they are going to race down to their finish line which is just going to be their special place in the ocean that they can get away from other predators. So kids are lined up and on the count of three the crabs race to the finish line. One adaptation to this is if have several children, if you have six or eight children you might want to do a relay and you might want to have some of your penguins at the finish line some down at the iceberg. So penguins can start, rundown, touch their buddy on the iceberg and their buddy can race back to the start line. So if you have a lot of children, try a relay it's a lot of fun. So let's do this activity and then let's go on to something that's going to be a little fun, the kids will get tickled. This is a little snack idea that we have for the kids and we are going to be talking about some of our ocean animals. We are going to make a lunch with an octopus lunch and we are also going to make some shark jelly deserts. Let's try it.

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