Toledo Summer Youth Program
July 26, 2013

I like to start the day with a rousing game of Peg - Patch - Hook. It's played like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where Peg (stand on one leg) beats Patch (cover one eye) Patch beats Hook (hand up with curled fingers) and Hook beats Peg.

Split the group into "ships" and have each ship elect a captain. They huddle, decide a strategy, then line up facing each other. I call out Ready . . . Aim. . . . FIRE! and ...

each ship shows their respective battle strategy.

Sometimes, just like in a real battle (I suppose) there is miscommunication. Here we have a couple Pegs, a Hook or two, and several Patches.

When one side 'wins' they then chase down and tag people on the other team. When you are tagged, you are "Pressed into service" becoming a member of the victor's crew and now you must chase down your former crewmates.

It's a great way to burn off some energy.

After the game, it's into the boats.

That's a nice gaggle of boats.

These kids are YOUNG, I think all these girls are eight years old or younger. It made for some interesting paddling.

Another shot of the boats on the water.

and off they go, up the slough for a little adventure time. Simply nothing better than messing about in boats.

Back at the Boathouse, we had the kids who didn't want to go boating working on decorating the paddles we had made earlier. I finally got smart enough to have them decorate with stickers and Sharpies rather than paint - paint requires dry time.

Other kids were decorating the cardboard boats. This was done with paint, because that's what we had.

More decorating paddles . . .

. . . And more decorating boats.

That is one photogenic kid.

Alyssa is pretty photogenic, too.

The Boathouse, humming with activity.

In a flash of inspiration, I had the kids sign their work, along with their age.

There was some real creativity going on.

As each finished, I took a photo.

That's a poor photo of the artwork on the end of the paddle - it's like swirling waves in a storm tossed sea.

There's a proud little worker.

For a piece of old 2x6, $9 for a pack of pens and a $3 for some foam stickers, we were having a lot of fun.

Cole was quite proud of his work.

Alyssa did a bang up job as well.

Roy went for big, bold colors.

There is some interesting things happening this picture, I'm just not sure what they are.

Hakim and his sister show off their creations with pride.

And there you have it - a good day at the Boathouse. Fun on the water, fun on the land.