As school holidays come to a close, Pacific Fair Shopping Centre is offering kids the chance to build the mall of their dreams.

All Boxed Up! is a 13-day construction play event that puts kids in an architect’s shoes. In those 13 days, the center’s Little Builders are designing and constructing 13 cardboard shopping centres. The malls they’re building with the guidance of The Little City Project might not be perfect matches for Pacific Fair’s ongoing redevelopments, but they sure are fun. Bright, colorful, and even pretty sustainable.

Every participant receives a construction map, construction hat, and a certificate of participation. The map give them a few hints about the future of Pacific Centre—their imaginations take them from there.

Adults can’t participate, but Pacific Fair has boxed up a bunch of retailer discounts to share with shoppers during the event. They can also watch the results from home: the center is posting the results of each day’s construction on Facebook.

The Little City Project is running another fun, collaborative project for kids at the center: a room-sized drawing made of colorful duct tape. This one doesn’t require pre-booking—Kids can simply come by and contribute sticky spots or stripes to the big design.

Willowbrook shopping center is planning to make the upcoming Family Day statutory holiday all about a grander sort of family: our global family.

World Play Day is shaping up to be a great exploration of cultures around the world for shoppers young and old. The center is still bringing exhibitors aboard, but the lineup is looking good.

The center will have an Entertainment Zone featuring dance, music and sports demonstrations from cultures around the world. Highland dancing, Karate and African storytelling are just a few of the types of demonstrations it will feature.

Kids can send time at the Arts & Craft Zone making African necklace crafts, popsicle stick totem poles, flag magnets and more. They can also help LEGO Certified Professional Robin Sather decorate a giant LEGO goble with landmarks and flags of the world’s nations.

Grown-up shoppers will undoubtedly enjoy Flavours of the World, which features samples and snacks from around the globe. Center retailers will also be offering specials on international foods.

During their travels, children can also complete an event passport. The first 500 to complete the passport get a goodie bag, and everyone who manages to fill it out will be entered to win a kid’s prize package.

Sensitive Santa is a great start, but children with special needs should get to spend time with their heroes more than once a year. That’s why Caring Bunny is hopping into Stanford Shopping Center this Saturday.

Caring Bunny is a joint program developed by The Noerr Programs and AbilityPath.org. Now in its second year, the event provides children that might not be able to comfortably cope with the lines, bright flashes, crowds and noise that comes along with a mall event a chance to enjoy a heartwarming Easter experience. To avoid those problems, guests of the Caring Bunny arrive before the mall opens. They’ll have a chance to listen to social stories that explain and anticipate the actions involved during their visit. Any remaining wait will be filled with coloring and other activities, and then they’ll be called in one and a time.

“We had an overwhelming response to the launch of Caring Bunny and Caring Santa last year. As a result, we are thrilled to expand this program to 52 malls,” said Sheryl Young, CEO of AbilityPath.org. “Holding the event before the mall opens to the public helps provide a calmer, sensory-friendly environment,” she added.

Disclosure: While The Noerr Programs advertises with Shopping Center Weekly, we don’t give preference to advertiser initiatives in our editorial content.

Literacy is a huge part of any individual’s ability to succeed and thrive in the world, so here’s a cause that cuts straight to our hearts: for the second year in a row, Fingerlakes Mall held a Mall Crawl for reading. It’s a center without a bookstore, but it has no shortage of eager young readers.

According to The Citizen, The Union Springs Literacy Professional Learning Community brought teachers in from six different school districts to bring the joy of reading to local children. The teachers sat in front of shops and read picture books to all the children that came to see them.

In exchange for taking the time to listen, the children were given raffle tickets for each story they heard. Retailers offered up prizes like chocolate, marker packs and portrait sittings to be raffled off.

From the newspaper:

“Karen Burcroff, the literacy group facilitator and the principal at A.J. Smith Elementary School, said the event is designed to make reading seem worthwhile to children.
“It stresses that reading is fun, and that you can do it anywhere,” she said. “Not only the teachers are saying that, but even the mall.”

Children in front of Maurice’s were weighing the relative virtues of urban and rural life with “Town Mouse, Country Mouse.” Jennifer Maloney, a seventh-grade English teacher at Union Springs, read the story.
…
“I think this is a great opportunity for kids to be exposed to a positive reading experience,” Maloney said. “So many of them have negative feelings about reading, so hopefully something like this can get them on a positive trend.”

Meadowhall Shopping Centre has plenty of summer entertainment planned for the kids, but one young man won’t be playing there this summer — he’ll be working. Owen Birkett, a 12-year old from Rotherham, has joined the team, as it were, as the center’s official Toy Tester.

Most jobs aren’t all fun and games, but this one sort of it. Over the course of the summer, Owen will be stopping by the center for an hour a week, and checking out all the cool new toys that come in. Unlike most toy testers, he’s not checking for safety or lead content — his job is all about fun. He’ll be playing with all the toys to see what’s best, and then he’ll be sharing that insight with center staff, and with parents and other kids on the center’s website. Folks following him might just get a first-hand sighting of the toys that will be hot this Christmas.

To snag this coveted position, Owen needed to compete with eight other short-listed children. They were judged on enthusiasm, confidence and ability to talk about the products. When all was said and done, he came out as the top applicant.

As Meadowhall’s Toy Tester, Owen won’t be pulling a salary. He’s a touch young for a real job yet. Instead, he’ll get to take home his favorites from the toys he tests this summer.