"Bye, Ethan! Have a great first day at your after-school program!" Mr. Frick said.
He waved as Ethan walked into the gym.
"You must be Ethan," Miss Shelly said with a big smile.
"Welcome to Kids Central!"
Ethan saw two girls sitting at the table, trading beads.
They looked up and stared at him.
Two boys were playing basketball in a corner of the gym.
They stopped and stared at him too.
"A new kid?" one of the boys said.
"Ethan, meet Nina and Izzie.
They're in third grade.
And this is Bobby and Jason.
They're in fourth grade, like you!" Miss Shelly said.
"Ethan just moved from California," she told everyone.
"Hi," the boys said together.
"You're really tan," Jason said.
"It's warm and sunny all year in southern California."
Ethan looked out the window and frowned.
"Not like here."
"We’re going to make Kids Central scrapbooks today!" Miss Shelly said.
"Every day we do a new activity together," she explained to Ethan.
"It's fun!" said Nina.
"Today we'll make scrapbooks that you can fill in during the year," Miss Shelly said.
"First choose a long piece of construction paper for the front and back of your book.
Fold it in half.
Then write the year and 'Kids Central' on the front."
Jason and Bobby both chose orange.
But Ethan chose blue.
"Blue is my favorite color because it's the color of the ocean," Ethan said.
"In California I used to surf every day after school!" He paused.
"But there's no ocean in Pennsylvania."
"But Pennsylvania has other fun things," Bobby said.
"Now choose six pieces of the smaller paper for the inside pages," Miss Shelly said.
"Put them in your folded cover, and staple the folded side.
Glue this All About Me sheet on the first page."
"My favorite food is tacos!" Ethan said.
"Will we make tacos at Kids Central?"
"Yeah! Let's make tacos!" Izzie said.
"Maybe we could. We do cook a lot," Miss Shelly said.
"The next page will be your September page," Miss Shelly went on.
"Use these alphabet stickers to spell 'September' across the top.
This month you can draw pictures or write about what happened in school."
"I'm going to write about Ethan, the new boy with blue shorts," Izzie said.
She pointed at Ethan.
"It is not nice to point, Izzie," Miss Shelly said.
"I'll write about my first day at Kids Central," Ethan said.
"Great ideas! Next make one page for each month until June," Miss Shelly said.
"You can fill in the other pages during the year."
"Miss Shelly, there's one extra page.
What's it for?" Ethan asked.
"It should be the Friends page.
We can sign our names on each other's scrapbooks!" Bobby said.
"Cool idea," Ethan said, smiling. "Will you sign mine?"
"Sure," Bobby said.
"Gather together, everyone.
We're going to take a photo for your scrapbooks," Miss Shelly said.
"It will go on the cover."
The kids gathered together.
Miss Shelly set the timer on the camera.
She ran behind them just in time. "Cheese!"
[caption_out@