A Whale of a Tale

Actually it was more like a whale's tail.  Three times each summer our church holds one day camps which are our version of Vacation Bible School.  Today was the first one for this year.  I volunteered to help and it turned out to be a fun day. The theme today was science and in the afternoon the campers (ages 4-10) contructed small catapults and balloon powered race cars with which they later competed in car races and marshmallow tosses.  They also mixed oil, water, food coloring and Alka Seltzer tablets to create tornados in little bottles.  This was the experiment I helped with and the kids were fascinated.  Me too.  The morning activity was the big hit of the day though.  Pastor Bill had invited a naturalist from the New England area to come and present a program on whales.  I understand that she presented the same program at the library this afternoon. She has been studying whales for over 20 years and did an excellent job of teaching the kids about whales.  They asked lots of questions which is always a good sign.  Did you know that every whale has distinctive tail markings?  No two are alike.  The highlight was her lifesize inflatible whale, with markings copied from one of her favorite real whales named Nile (like the river).  The whale took up about half the length of the large room we were meeting in, and after it was fully inflated, she took the children inside in small groups.  I did not go inside.  As a friend said, there was no problem with crawling in and sitting down, but getting up and out again would not be a pretty sight.  All in all it was a fun, fascinating day and the kids had fun too.