Yes, it’s a simple carnival goldfish booth. Except that our prizes are considerably larger…!
We read I Won a What? written by Audrey Vernick, and illustrated by Robert Neubecker (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016). When a little boy’s parents promise he can keep anything he wins at a goldfish booth, he is thrilled. Especially when he wins a whale named Nuncio! Soon it’s wheelbarrows full of lunch, high spirited swims in the ocean, and rather complicated and unpleasant swimming pool maintenance. Mom and Dad have just about had enough, until Nuncio demonstrates his fantastic lifting skills and stupendous car washing abilities. It’s a touching story of a boy and his whale…especially the very last page of the book!
You’ll need:
- 1 box (we used a 4.5” X 4.5” x 9” box – a large tissue box works too)
- A selection of color masking tape
- 3 clear plastic cups
- 2 large craft sticks (ours were 6″ long)
- 1 Go Fish sign template printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
- 1 jumbo pom-pom
- Scissors and tape for construction
- Markers for decorating
- Hot glue
The goldfish booth is very easy to make! Decorate a box with color tape and/or markers. Hot glue 3 clear plastic cups to the top (we went with wide-mouth cocktail cups). You can draw your goldfish on orange construction paper and glue them to the insides of the cups, or you can do what we did, and use old orange mailing labels from the office supply closet.
Cut and color the booth sign from the template. We left an extra border around the sign’s edge and added metallic gold dot stickers “lights.” Mount the booth sign to a pair of craft sticks attached to the back of the box.
The “ball” for the game was a jumbo pom-pom, but ping pong balls or crumbled paper works too! To play the game, toss the ball into the cup. But what do you win? A WHALE!
We snagged a big flat of grey cardboard from library recycling, and Katie turned it into a fantastic whale. Like the book, kids were expected to take care of the whale. They took it on a little walk, wiped it clean with a cloth, and scooped its poop (i.e. brown jumbo pom-poms)! This part of the program was great for building physical skills – balancing, circular hand motions, scooping. Check out this pro at work:
After the kids successfully demonstrated their whale watching abilities, they took home a 3″ plastic whale (ours are “Lil Sailor Whale Squirt Toys” from Oriental Trading Company, $6.50 a dozen).
If you’re wondering why our story time area doesn’t look quite the same as usual, wonder no more. This was a guest story time at the Mary Jacobs Memorial Library in Rocky Hill, New Jersey! They graciously offered to serve as a pop up story time location while our library is under renovation. The Mary Jacobs Library has a full roster of children’s programs, fantastic (and highly artistic) staff, and one of my favorite children’s rooms of all times.
Thanks for letting us come to your library and have some fun Mary Jacobs!
We’ll start with the ambulance! It’s basically a box on a pull string…but look at Katie’s awesome light on the roof! That’s a rectangle of cellophane wrapped around a snippet of red bubble tea straw. Wrap a piece of masking tape or white construction paper around the middle, and hot glue it to the roof. Add a construction paper windshield, wheels, and red crosses for the sides (or draw them on with markers).
Next, fold the 2 panels on either side of the truck’s headlights.
Finally, fold the hood down to meet the side panels, and secure it with tape.
Tape it to the front of the box (use markers to color it before you fold it, or after). Finish the ambulance by attaching a yarn pull string to the front. Up next is all your medical equipment, which gets conveniently stored in your ambulance box.
Most of the items in the kit are quick to assemble. The ice pack is 
The stethoscope is basically constructed out of of two, 15″ pieces of black 
Hot glue 2 
To make the syringe, you’re going to need a 2.75″ piece of bubble tea straw, a 4.25″ piece of 
Lots of bandaging…
And LOTS of shots…
At one point, six kids were crowding around me, administering shots. I was a very, very, healthy person by the end of story time.
Swoosh down the plastic table slopes in your magnificent snow tube, then grab a delicious cup of hot chocolate (enhanced with chocolate scratch-and-sniff stickers) at the sweetest little snow station in the universe – the Cocoa Chalet!
Snow tubes first! Cut the bottom off a tissue box, leaving 1″ sides on the box. Cut a circular tube shape out of tagboard or poster board. Decorate it, then hot glue (or tape) it to the top of the box. Next, flip the snow tube box over and glue two mini craft stick runners to the bottom – this will allow the tube to slide most effectively. Finally, hot glue (or tape) a large plastic button to the inside bottom of the box. This provides the weight that will send your tube zipping down the hill rather than slow-poking to a halt.
The tube rider is a toilet paper tube decorated with construction paper and markers. We added a felt scarf and a pair of mini pom-pom earmuffs as well. Did you recognize the red-cloaked rider on the right? That’s Little Red Skating Hood from this 
Your snow tubes are done, now for the slope! These were two, 6′ plastic tables we secured on stools. We’ve done exactly the same thing for this 
We took four, 60″ pieces of PVC pipe, and speared wads of 
Here’s the back of the chalet. As you can see, the whole thing is attached to a cake pad base. Oh, and the chimney is a bubble tea straw.
The hot chocolate was a little piece of brown construction paper curled into a 1oz plastic sample cup. I topped it off with some poly fill whipped cream, then added a chocolate scratch-and-sniff sticker so the cup would exude a chocolatey bouquet.
Hey! Do you want to see the most amazing hot chocolate in the world that I consume far too much of? Right here, my friend. Right