Creative Nature Crafts for Kids--At the Beach

Sun, surf, seagulls...a trip to the beach is fun for the entire family! The fun can continue at home with these crafts that utilize all those little treasures kids collect in their sandpails. Using shells, seaweed, and even barnacles, this video shows the making of a Sea Witch doll, picture frames, fish prints, and seashell animals. Each craft is shown being made in real-time by young children with instructions being given by an adult "mom." While the importance of spending quality time with children, and a sense of environmental responsibility, are emphasized throughout the program, the long stretches spent watching children's hands assemble these simple crafts could have been more profitably spent giving educational information about the ocean or the materials being used. Jerky zooms, unchanging shots, and rather apathetic children don't help the already slow pace either. The crafts are great ways to create mementoes of times at the ocean; however, the video presentation of how to make them is easily forgettable. Not a necessary purchase. Aud: K, E, P. (E. Gieschen)