Welcome, Fall! Leaf Art

As the deadline to plan October programs approached, I realized I wasn't doing anything seasonal except the big Halloween storytime we do yearly. In the interest of trying to make myself more excited about Fall (it's getting cold and the trees are dying...yay?) I decided to put together a fun Fall craft program.

We had three stations: crayon rubbings, torn paper trees, and painted leaf prints. I structured this program as a drop-in for an hour and a half, and over 30 people came to make leaf art with me! This was a fun, easy program that I put together with things we already had in our supply room. If you want to recreate it, here is a supply list:

Crayon Rubbings
Crayons
Paper
Leaf Rubbing Plates

Torn Paper Trees
Torn construction paper in Fall colors
Brown construction paper for trunk
White paper for background
Glue sticks
Scissors

Painted Leaf Prints
Washable paint in Fall colors
Paper
Artificial Leaves

Also, it's becoming a wonderful theme that the kids who come to my programs are more creative than I am. Some of them figured out that the Leaf Rubbing Plates also make great paint prints! Here are some of the gorgeous finished products they made.

Torn paper tree and rubbings examples and supplies

Leaf print example and supplies

Artists at work

Artists at work

Finished torn paper tree

Finished leaf prints and paintings

Finished torn paper tree

Finished crayon rubbing

Finished torn paper tree

Finished torn paper tree

Finished art drying after the program

Gingerbread Geometry

Another awesome winter program!

Also, another program that I did not technically plan, but did help out with the staffing. Sara planned this one with another staff member who got sick unexpectedly, so I jumped in to help pass out materials and answer questions. It ended up being a total blast; we took the tradition of making gingerbread houses and added a mathematical twist!

Materials:

• Graham crackers (6 per child)
• Icing (Can be store bought, or made using powdered sugar and water)
• Assortment of candy for decorating
• Plastic table covering
• Plastic knives (one per child)
• Ruler (one per child)
• Disposable trays (one per child)

Using graham crackers instead of gingerbread was key for this program, for a couple of reasons. One, easier to find and cheaper to purchase. Two, they are perfectly rectangular.

Step one: Give each child six graham crackers.
Step two: Cut one inch off of two of your graham crackers.
Step three: Using icing, form a rectangle with the graham crackers to be the walls of your house.

At this point, there was a discussion about area. The audience was slightly younger than I think Sara was anticipating. She was planning to have tweens who would understand math concepts, but we ended up with a couple of tweens and the rest under five years old. So she skipped having them write down the wall measurements and then multiplying those measurements to find the area of the house. She also briefly explained what the volume of a shape is, but skipped the written part of figuring out the volume of our houses. In case you want to do this with an older age group, here is that information (the inch measurements are not exact, just examples. As a group you can measure your crackers and figure out the exact measurements).

Area: The side of a surface
Area = width x height; A=wh

Long sides of the graham crackers are 5 inches (length). Short sides are 4 inches (width). The area of the gingerbread houses are length times width, or 5x4=20. The area of your house is 20 inches.

Volume: The measure of the amount of space inside a solid figue
Volume = length x width x height; V=lwh

Long sides of the graham crackers are 5 inches (length). Short sides are 4 inches (width). When standing up, the crackers are 2 inches tall (height). The volume of the gingerbread houses are 5x4x2=40. 

Instead of doing the math with pencils and paper, we moved on to the next part of the building.

Step four: Use your remaining two graham crackers to add a triangular or flat roof
Step five: Decorate with icing and candy!

While we had a few families attempt the triangular roof, the icing dried too slowly and most of the kids opted for the easier flat roof.

Before we started, I made 12 individual cups with some of each kind of candy: Twizzlers, Red Hots, those buttery dinner mints, individually wrapped peppermints, and gum drops. This way there was no fighting over candy because each participant had the exact same thing in their cup, and everyone had the same amount of icing (a powdered sugar/water mixture in baggies for easy piping) to decorate with. Check out their amazing creations!

The roof is a monster face eating candy!

Write Your Own Picture or Comic Book - Week Four

Today was the final session of our four-week writing program for tweens age 8-12.
Week One
Week Two
Week Three

Much like our first session, today was very free form. Some of the kids who were absent last time came back (we took a week off since last Thursday was Thanksgiving Day and the library was closed) so we rounded out the class with a solid ten tweens.

As I promised last time, this week they got to physically make their own books! I was aware of these blank books at Michaels, and bought a bunch of them ahead of time. They were very reasonably pried, $2.99 plus tax for a pack of three books. (Warning, sarcasm ahead) And I definitely didn't spend my own money on them, because that would be crazy and is something no educator does ever, because they are always provided with an adequate budget (end sarcasm).

We did not do a warm up activity today, because after four sessions all the kids know each other and I have learned almost all their names. I wanted to give them as much time as possible to work on their final products, so I set out art supplies, passed out blank books, and made myself available for help!

Some of them brought the story ideas they started last time, and others made up a brand new story. I noticed that I got a lot of "Can I do this?" questions. I did my best not to say yes or no; instead my answer was, "You can do anything you want, it's your story!" After the seventh or eighth "Can I..." question, I realized that many of these kids had never sat down and tried to compose their own 100% original story before. Whether they had never thought of it, or there isn't enough time with school work, or no one in their life had ever suggested they try it, this was the first time they had ever had zero guidelines before! In the last session of this workshop, it hit me how important it was for the kids who came. Best of all, everyone left today having created something gorgeous and original. Here are some pictures of their books:

Most didn't finish their books completely, but I encouraged them to finish at home or come back to the library and use our supplies to finish them here. I had so much fun with this workshop. I will be running monthly drop-in Tween Writing Time programs in 2018, which I am excited to report on, and my partner Youth Services librarian and I might even be starting a tween book club for ages 8-12. It's such a fun age group to work with because of their creativity and willingness to try anything. That's why being a children's librarian is so much fun; you can have fun at storytime with the babies and preschoolers, then turn around and put on your classroom teacher hat for a tween educational workshop. When the paperwork and meetings get overwhelming, I remember that I also get to do amazing things like this. Programming for these kids makes the rest of the hard work completely worth it!

Kids-Giving Day 2017

This program was the brainchild of my wonderful and talented partner in crime, the other youth services librarian at my branch, Sara. She conceived, named, and planned this whole thing. Hopefully she will have her own librarian blog soon so that I can link to her entry about Kids-Giving Day and give her all the recognition for this incredible event. Until then, here is my take as one of the staff members who helped set up and run it......

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, we thought it would be a good idea to do some sort of large charity event to teach our younger patrons how to give back to the less fortunate or struggling their community. Three organizations that Sara found out are always accepting donations were Child Crisis Arizona, the Phoenix Children's Hospital, and Operation Gratitude.

Child Crisis Arizona requested donations of new containers of baby wipes, so we announced that people could bring their donations to the library in our newsletter, and set up a small area to collect them. We collected 9 packages by the end of the day.

Operation Gratitude is always accepting donations of cards written to active duty troops and veterans, so we also set up a card making station. One of our staff members donated a large stack of blank greeting cards, which were at the station if anyone wanted to write a note in a card. We also set out art supplies for kids to make their own cards. By the end of the program, we had a box full of 114 cards, which we will send to Operation Gratitude to be dispersed to the troops. 

Finally, Phoenix Children's Hospital is collecting activity bags to be given to their patients who need extended hospital stays, and their siblings. Their guidelines were very specific, so we made exactly what they asked for: bags containing a pack of crayons and several coloring sheets. These were very easy to assemble, and the real charm of this particular donation came from the decorations on the bags. We set it up so that the bag decorating station came first; patrons were encouraged to use crayons, markers, and stickers to jazz up plain paper bags as much as they wanted. Then, a volunteer helped them stuff their bags with one pack of crayons and 3-4 coloring sheets that we printed out before the program. Kids and grownups alike had a great time writing inspirational messages and drawing colorful pictures on the bags for the PCH patients. By the end of the day, we had collected 82 bags!

Here are some patrons (photographed with permission) working on their bags.

And here is Sara and me collecting all the wonderful donations while cleaning up!

The total number of participants was counted as 109! We also got lots of positive verbal feedback from parents about the purpose of the event. Apparently our community here in Mesa wants more opportunities to give back, and teach their children about giving back as well. I think we will definitely be doing another community service-based program in the future!

Write Your Own Picture or Comic Book - Week Three

This is week three of a four-week writing program for tweens age 8-12.
Week One

Week Two
Week Four

We only had six participants today, which was a large drop from last week's twenty. Even though the drastic drop was surprising and disappointing, I found that the smaller group was easier to manage in an instructed program like this one. Today's session was also the most regimented so far, and it's much easier to get six kids to listen to you than it is to quiet and focus a group of twenty. 

For today's ice breaker/warm up activity, we did another Wacky Web Tale. Today's was called "Summer Fun," and I asked that their own names appeared in the tale. After the 15 minutes to fill out the Mad Lib-style tale, I had each child share theirs since the group was so small. 

As I said above, today's lesson was the most structured we've had so far. Since they will be creating their own books next week, I wanted to make sure all the kids have a strong grasp on the concepts of character, setting, plot, etc. The best way to do that, I think, is to have them relate these elements to stories they already know. So, I actually made and presented a short PowerPoint today. I made sure it had a lot of places for the kids to interject their comments and questions, as well as read aloud to me. 

As you probably noticed if you saw the week two entry, I used the same green chart again this week to teach them the plot diagram. 

Each time I clicked to a new slide, I picked a couple of readers to read the info from the slide aloud to the group. Then, I asked a different child to name that element in a book they had read lately. For example, "Who are the main characters in Alice in Wonderland?" "Alice, the White Rabbit, the queen, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare," etc. 

I left the final slide, "Now it's your turn," up after we were done discussing all the story elements. I wanted it to serve as a reminder as they broke up to work on their individual stories. At this point in the session, I let the kids choose if they would rather type on the computer or write with a pen/pencil and notepad. I asked them to make up the story they wanted to "publish" next week, using the story elements and plot diagram we just talked about. I made myself available for questions, and they had lots! Each child left today having worked on something, so I can't wait to see the final products next week!