Part of my internship for the summer involves serving as the Assistant Instructor for the Summer Kids Club, four week-long morning camps for kids ages 4 to 5 and 6 to 7. Each day is themed around a different aspect of Chesapeake Bay life and/or culture, and allows us to take advantages of the museum’s many resources in a kid-friendly manner. In short, I spend my mornings playing with kids.

Today was themed “Showboating on the Chesapeake,” as we attempted to explore an aspect of traditional recreational life on the Bay, culminating in a puppet show performance for parents at the end of the morning. We acted out a story about pollution on the Chesapeake, in which the superhero, Chesapeake Champion teaches various members of society about how to be better stewards of the environment.

If you want to see something that will just melt your heart, watch 6 and 7 year olds put on a puppet show. Each child made a character or prop or was on “stage crew” and painted the proscenium and made a sign. As Martha, the other teacher, read the story, our puppeteers held up their puppets or strutted their signs across the stage.

Were there missed cues because puppeteers weren’t listening or had to go to the bathroom mid-performance? Of course. Was the stage decorated in an uncoordinated blur of tempera paint? Absolutely! Could you actually tell what the tractor was if you just looked at it? Certainly not! But there is just something about such a hodge-podge effort that screams adorability to both parents and passerby.