Kidsday: Fun with twisty balloons

I have a great animal collection. I made them using a fun craft called Twisty Balloon Animals Kits. The best part about it is that it is easy to use and the animals come out just like they are described in the directions.

My favorite animal to create is the wiener dog. The wiener dog looks like a hot dog, and it is so easy to make. Sometimes, I can make one in less than a minute. My sister likes to make elephants, and my baby-sitter likes to make giraffes.

If you like balloons and you like animals, this is the perfect craft for you. My whole family really enjoys it, and you will, too. You can find lots of these kits online. Just type in "twisty balloon animals" in the search field.

Souvenir sports glasses

I think it is good to have a glass collection because it is fun to drink out of them when you have guests.

I have five sports glasses, including Ohio State, Duke, Yankees, Mets and Giants. I started this when I was on vacation with my mom's family in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I was at a fancy store, and it had sports logos on the glasses. I thought it was pretty cool. So I bought one. Every time I drink out of that glass, it reminds me of that awesome vacation.

I keep my collection in a drawer in my room so my brothers don't take them. My favorite glass is my Ohio State glass because that is the one that I first got.

-- Kidsday Reporter Danny Striano

Buckets of kindness

We would like to tell you about bucket filling. Mrs. Katie Dopico (our teacher) read us a book called "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud. The book is about how kind or unkind you can be to others without noticing. If you are kind to someone, you fill their bucket. When you fill someone's bucket, you fill your bucket, too. But when you are nasty or mean or ignore someone, you dip into, or empty, their bucket. That means your bucket is not filled, either. Mrs. Dopico told us we would be making our own buckets.

The next day, our buckets arrived. We all colored them, and put our names on them. The buckets are little pockets, the type that are in the back of a library book. Then, Mrs. Dopico told us that every week we would have to fill someone's bucket, and on Fridays we would empty our buckets and see all the good things we did. We hope we never lose our buckets.

-- Kidsday Reporters Kelly Gallagher and Brynne Rush

CLASS OF THE WEEK: Katie Dopico's fourth-grade class, WEST SIDE SCHOOL, Syosset