Kids put observational skills to the test

It was a case of the missing Rainbow Thursday afternoon at the Moose Jaw Public Library.
During the library's spy school for students ranging from Grade 4 to Grade 7, Rainbow, the white and rainbow coloured spy dog, disappeared.
His suspected kidnapper was identified by the students as an adult female, with brown curly, almost puffy hair, wearing a blue shirt, blue pants and glasses. She was approximately 5"6" in height or about 1.7 meters tall and was last seen taking paint brushes out of the basement classroom's cupboard.
At first, the students, distracted by an activity, didn't even realized Rainbow was missing.
It wasn't until spy school instructor Katherine Shepherd returned to the room, after being called away, that the small stuffed dog's disappearance was acknowledged.
Only missing for about 20 minutes, Rainbow was returned by his kidnapper, only to teach the students a valuable lesson about the importance of observation.
Shepherd, the organizer of the event and also the library's summer program assistant, said the spy school is part of a national program titled Agent 009 and was developed by the Toronto Public Library and the TD Bank Financial Group.
On the Agent 009 website, it says the program is designed to get children from all over the country reading for pleasure.
Along with a book list, provided on the website, local libraries across the country are creating activities like the spy school held here in Moose Jaw to promote the program.
Thursday's event, according to Shepherd, focused on using the five senses, mainly for observation.
Along with using their detective skills to locate Rainbow's kidnapper, the students were also asked to describe a picture to a partner to demonstrate what happens when you have to describe a suspect to a police sketch artist.
They were also asked to use their new detective skills to figure out which fictional character was taped to their backs.
And to test their memorization skills, the students were given two minutes to memorize 25 objects before they were taken away and they had to write them down on a blank piece of paper.
Overall, Shepherd said she felt the junior detectives did their job well and in the case of the missing Rainbow, she considers it, case closed.

Lyndsay McCready can be reached at 691-1256.