BEACH BABY BINGO
This week plan on dressing your children in their swimsuits and leaving them on because the beach is the place for activities! As long as you run your little sea urchins through the outdoor shower at least once a day, it should be okay.

Does your child spend hours making sand castles at the beach, dripping sand over the towers to create that "wax" effect, using all your good plastic containers to make different shapes? Then the 34th Annual Sandcastle and Sculpture Day at Jetties Beach on Saturday, August 18, is the Nobel Prize in summer activities.

Making sand sculptures is fun for everyone, but small children will not have the patience - or the discipline - to stick with a sandcastle from beginning to end. My 2-year old likes to build and destroy, so signing him up for this competition would be akin to asking Godzilla to meet you for brunch at the Russian Tea Room in New York. Toddlers will enjoy the end products, so plan on a beach trip after naptime to let them see the finished sculptures.

If your children are at an appropriate age and concentration level (okay, you can fudge that one a little bit), sign the family up and start those digging exercises! The deadline for entering is noon on Friday, August 17, and you can sign up by visiting the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce at 48 Main Street.

Planning ahead will help make the most of your family activity. On Friday evening, call a family meeting to decide what you will be sculpting, then sketch out a picture for reference. Have your children make a list of the digging and sculpting implements you will need, and then these can be gathered up from the various hiding places that have been used over the summer, like in the garden, under the deck or in the 5 ft. hole your child has somehow managed to dig in the backyard when you weren't looking. This is one of those win-win activities - they think they are preparing for a great day of sun and sculpting, and in reality they are cleaning up the yard!

After you have agreed on a shape, have your children get creative with detailed decorations. Anything goes, but try to stick with biodegradable products wherever possible. Seaweed makes great hair, and the Creeks are a Seaweed Super WalMart. Make sure you only take grass that is already on the beach - the scallops need the seaweed and eel grass in the water.

Nantucket is also home to rocks in a cornucopia of sizes, shapes and colors. Consider using them for windows, or eyes, or anything else you can envision. The north shore beaches are best for culling rocks and shells since the waves are not as rough. South shore beaches are good for driftwood, surfing and the occasional wrecked boat.

Gather all your supplies together before Saturday morning to minimize chaos and pre-coffee confusion. Check-in begins at 10 a.m., and the starting gates burst open at noon. Judging takes place at 4 p.m. and ribbons are handed out at 5 p.m.

If your children aren't too sunburned from Saturday, and the family is still intact after having to work together for four hours, haul them down to Brant Point on Sunday morning for the Rainbow Fleet Parade. For the youngsters whocouldn't help with the sandcastle, have them prepare their own boat to set sail on Sunday.

The supplies you will need are simple - a wide plastic lid, like a margarine lid, or a shallow plastic container, a drinking straw, construction or card stock paper in the colors of the rainbow, a hole punch and a small wad of Play-Doh or clay.

Cut a right triangle from the construction paper to make your sail. For the geometry-challenged among us, it's the triangle with a corner that makes an "L." Let your child decorate the sail with crayons, markers, stickers - anything that will personalize it.

Punch three holes along the long straight edge of the sail, and weave the drinking straw, now known as the boat's mast, through the holes.

Put a small wad of molding clay or Play-Doh on the inside of the lid. Push the end of the drinking straw into the clay. A boatmaker is born!

Make several of these, and then take them to the beach while you await the Rainbow Fleet. Let your children wade into the water, launch their boats, and watch how the wind and tide move them. This is a parent-at-attention activity, so keep one eye on your children and the other on the boat.

You can sing "A-Sailing We Will Go" to the tune of "The Farmer In the Dell" while you are launching your boats. If you haven't been blessed with having this song hammered into your head by a musically gifted parent or caregiver, the words are: "A-sailing we will go, a-sailing we will go, hi, ho, hoist the sails, a-sailing we will go." Next verse, different from the first! "A-sailing we will go, a-sailing we will go, grab the lines, wave goodbye, a-sailing we will go." You can make up as many verses as you want.

Sand, sailing and summer - aren't you glad

you're on Nantucket? I