This past beautiful Sunday, the very delightful Midtown Street Fair was held. In addition to the Midtown Photo Scavenger Hunt, I put together 5 activities oriented towards children and the young at heart. As usual, when I designed these activities, I kept in mind cost, reuse of found materials, and multiple modalities of play. In addition, I wanted the activities to connect to one of the businesses in the Midtown Business District.
Coded Messages
This activity was a substitution code using the phone dial pad numbers to represent the letters. For example, 228 would represent the word CAT. This activity required only paper print outs and was distributed by CenturyLink.
Pasta Picasso
Here pasta, paste and paper were provided to let participants glue patterns onto pages. The nearby Italian restaurant, Orzo, was the inspiration for this activity.
Coloring Cupcakes and Cows
Pearl’s Cupcake Shoppe and the Teeny Tiny Farm provided the topics of choice for the coloring pages.
Draw Your Dreams
There’s something magical about having a stretch of heavily used asphalt closed to traffic. It’s an opportunity to use one of the simplest children’s toys, sidewalk chalk.
Photograph by Rich Tarbell
Diving for Pearls
At $15 this was the most expensive activity, and one of the most popular. Public, a restaurant specializing in Oysters made me think of searching for pearls. 
Photograph by Rich Tarbell
Let’s Get Physical
If you ever see an old fashioned treadmill for $10, BUY IT. It will be the best money you will ever invest in exercise equipment.
