Kid's Stuff -3

Silent auctions for children
by Anna M. Miller
After a huge meal at a family reunion, when the adults are too tired for more strenuous activity, how about a silent auction for the children?

Instead of bidding money, children are given questions to think about and answer. These are some of the questions we've included. What I like best about my dad. What can I do to help an older person? List three things you will do for your family next week and why you want to do them. Why my mother is special. What I like best about my Grandpa. Why I like to go to my Grandma's house.

If our questions seem too serious, ask about funny experiences involving one or more relatives, what they would like to do at the next family reunion. Enforce a time limit for writing answers and one for judges to reach their decision.

Choose an auctioneer; no previous experience necessary. The person should be able to keep things moving, state auction rules, present items, and announce judges' decisions. Judges may include parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins. Five is a good number.

Adults definitely need to sit among the children. Younger children may need adult help to answer a question and to write a bid.

Auction items may be provided by out-of-town relatives, or each family can furnish one. Our auction items, often educational, but always fun, have included stars for the ceiling of a child's room, a kaleidoscope, board games, a butterfly kit, books, drawing sets, a compass, and a video.

Auction items must have value to the bidders. The items should be unusual and desirable, but need not be expensive.

There must be at least one item for each child. A child who receives one of the first awards may help hand prizes to other winners. When it's all over, swapping is perfectly legal.

What do children remember about the Silent Auction? A nephew said, "I had never thought about those kinds of questions before. I guess I took my family for granted." A niece said, "I didn't think I could write something good enough to get the prize I really wanted."

Parents enjoy a glimpse of a child's wisdom which they had never seen but had tried to instill at home and at family reunions.

About the author
Anna M. Miller is a graduate of the University of Iowa with a master's in education from Indiana University. She worked in Korea as a lay missionary and has written many stories for children about Korea. She has worked in a Settlement House, YWCA, as a camp counselor as well as in teaching, counseling, and writing.

Scavenger hunt with banana boats
by Lowana Orcena
This scavenger hunt promises a great time and a surprise to be remembered.

First you need to make up clues for two teams, then hide them throughout the area. Each clue should lead the team to the next clue. You need the same number of clues for each team. Send teams in opposite directions, but write clues so that on the last clue, both teams end up at the same place where a surprise is waiting.

Divide children into two teams, offer some simple instructions, hand each team their first clue, and send them on their way. We sent one adult with each team. The property we used for the scavenger hunt belonged to a church and covered almost a city block. There was plenty of room for two teams.

As prizes for the children at the end of the hunt, we made banana boats. Some of the adults made the banana boats, while the scavenger hunt was going on. The children could easily make them.

Recipe for prizes
Bananas (one for each child)
Miniature marshmallows
Hershey bars
Tin foil
Outside grill that's not too hot.

Use one banana for each child. Peel the top of the banana, but leave the peel at the bottom. Slice the banana down the middle, but not all the way through. Scoop a little out of the banana. Fill with three or four chocolate squares and some marshmallows. Pull the banana peel back up, and wrap in tin foil. Lay the bananas on the warm (not hot) charcoal.

The chocolate and marshmallows should melt in about three to five minutes. Eat right away. Banana boats can be made ahead, but don't grill until it's time to eat them.

Each scavenger hunt calls for different clues. These are one set from the author.

These clues make up one team:

A special reunion book for kids
The Woodworth Family Reunion committee works hard to make their reunion enjoyable for all their 50 children under 12 years old. They want kids to enjoy themselves and look forward to the next reunion. They have something special for kids to take home from each reunion. Last year they gave each child a bottle of bubbles, a helium balloon, a box of crayons and a custom made Woodworth Family Reunion Coloring and Activity Book. The family's reunion is held at the Jack Tone Ranch, famous for it's Arabian Horses, which generated a cowboy theme for the coloring book. Activities include games and puzzles, like the Secret Message illustrated.
Organizer Paulene Van Der Volgen, Auburn, California, reports that she knows kids have fun because she gets thank-you notes from them.

Playing by the rules
by Ellen Javernick
Last summer we attended two family reunions. The first at Sylvan Lake Lodge in South Dakota over Fourth of July weekend. Younger family members hiked mountain trails, hissed at a melodrama and howled at a video made from photos of their parents as kids. It was a great time! I feared the second reunion would be a different story.

The second reunion was a four-hour, one hundred fifty person affair at the VFW hall in Canon City, Colorado. It was planned like a "senior chew and chat." Emphasis was on praising Great Aunt Florence's poticia and hearing about who was suffering from what illness ... hardly an exciting day for school-age members. The hall was on Main Street so for safety sake the kids could not leave the building. As an in-law I hesitated to offer advice but I wanted my children to have happy memories of time spent with their father's extended family. I offered to plan activities for the kids which was not greeted with much enthusiasm. I was given the go-ahead as long as the activities I planned "didn't cost money" and "didn't make a mess." Now that was a tall order!

Deck the hall
As a former preschool teacher, I was used to making messes. I was also used to making do with recycleables. I got free roll ends of newsprint from our local newspaper. Before everyone arrived I covered bare tables with newsprint and set out margarine tubs of old crayons. As guests arrived, younger family members began decorating table "cloths." I suggested that they decorate their places and those where their older relatives were sitting which encouraged intergenerational conversation and broke the ice for second cousins meeting for the first time. When you share a purple crayon, you have to talk!

When standing around gets to be old hat
Potluck dishes filled the serving table but dinner was not served immediately. To the bartender's delight, grown-ups were bellying up, but after the intial excitement of ginger ale with a cherry, kids were getting bored. I gave each child two sheets of newspaper-sized newsprint and showed them how to turn their papers into sailor hats. Preteens helped "new" cousins while big brothers and sisters made hats for preschooler siblings to decorate. Children almost forgot their growling tummies parading around the room with grandparents proudly pointing out grandchildren. Everyone wore name tags but large names written in crayon on the hats were easier to read and the children loved being addressed by name.

It's All Relative
Youngsters and oldsters alike agreed that the food was wonderful! Uncle Ludvic's homemade sausage was to die for. Great Aunt Florence's poticia deserved its wonderful reputation. But dinner didn't last all afternoon. Adults were content to enjoy another cup of coffee and hear news of relatives too far away to attend but children were getting restless. They gathered around one of the tables to make Family Member Finders and learn about their relationship to other guests. Using Family Finders like talking puppets, children approached folks they'd not met. Family Finders showed their empty mouths until their family relationship was explained. Then they showed the "We're related!" side. Even shy children joined the fun and enjoyed the sense of belonging to one big family.

The Family Tree
Another after-dinner activity was compilation of a giant family tree. Before any guests arrived, I drew a huge tree trunk on a large strip of the newsprint which represented the great-great grandparents were Slovenians who immigrated from Austria. With my husband's help I added branches for children and grandchildren. As young members circulated with their Family Finders they asked each person to write his or her name on a small piece of paper glued to appropriate branches of the big family tree. After the reunion I rolled and took the newsprint home and made small copies to send to all the relatives.

The afternoon went off with flying colors
While the women were comparing recipes, cleaning up and starting their good-byes, I organized a paper airplane contest. Everyone made a paper airplane with recycled computer paper or helped a young relative make one. Each contestant got three throws. Awards (paper ribbons) were handed out for all manner of reasons ... to the oldest contestant, the contestant from the farthest away and so forth and to the plane that flew the farthest. Everyone was responsible for flying his or her airplane to the trash or their car when they left.
The hall was clean. I'd spent no money and the kids had such fun that they're already looking forward to the next reunion.

Sailor hats
1. Begin with two sheets of newsprint (or newspaper). Fold in half "hamburger" style. (Kids will understand the teacher talk.)
2. Find and mark the center of the folded side.
3. Bring the outside corners of the folded side down until they meet in the middle. The resulting figure will look like a flat house with a triangular roof.
4. Fold the two bottom rectangles up and over the edges of the triangle. (The hat you've made will look a little like a sailboat.)
5. Tape or staple the "center of the sail" and the "ends of the boat."

Family Member Finder (made like Cootie Catchers of yore)
1. Begin with a square piece of computer paper.
2. Fold diagonally from corner to corner to make and "x" in the middle.
3. Open the paper up, then fold each corner to the center line.
4. Turn the whole shape over so open ends are down on the table.
5. Fold each corner into the center one more time.
6. Carefully lift the Family Finder and insert fingers in the four "pockets" you've made. Practice opening and closing the puppets mouth, from top to bottom and from side to side.
7. Write "We're related" on the inside of one of the "mouths." As an alternative, children can draw little dots and say, "Oh look, you've got the (family name) genes."

About the author
Ellen Javernick is a first-grade teacher and author of children's books. She lives in Loveland, Colorado. All five of her children enjoy getting together with their extended families at family reunions.grams to accommodate guest children. If it will help your members, choose a facility with a child-care program and make the information available to members.

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