OrKid Days

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

We interrupt this gray and white winter to bring you a splash of color and warmth!

Longwood Gardens holds an Orchid Extravaganza every year from January to March. There are three OrKid Days as part of the celebration where families can enjoy art activities, storytelling, investigate the patterns and colors of orchids, and delight in wonder and fun. Yesterday, at the last OrKid Day for this season, I was delighted to conduct my favorite activity – storytelling.

The book was Fantastic Flowers. In it, author and illustrator Susan Stockdale takes a look at some unusual looking flowers. She imagines them as a ballerina, a baboon, an ice cream cone, and many more. The kids enjoyed looking at the book, but the real attraction were the puppets that one of our volunteers made to accompany the story. Puppets never fail to draw in even the most reluctant listener. Yesterday, one little girl entered the space with her head down, clutching her mom’s hand, content to partially hide herself behind mom. They sat down and I invited her to come closer so she could see. Immediately she gave me that “I’m-fine-here-on-mom’s-lap” look. Fair enough. As some of the other children started finding the puppets that went with the different spreads in the book, I saw her inching closer. It wasn’t long before she was right in the mix, delighting in matching puppets to picture and laughing at the unusual flower names.

Here is a picture from yesterday and a few others of the orchids at Longwood. I wish I could take credit for those, but they were snapped by Longwood’s volunteer photographers.