Quick and Easy Art Activities

This is the beginning of a new effort on my part to collect art activities that are incredibly easy to organize, but can still offer kids the opportunity to be really artistic. Many easy crafts look pretty crappy and therefore end up being the next meal for their home trash bin, if the finished product even makes it out of the library!
At a meeting of children's librarians a few months ago, I received a ready-to-go art activity for fall. It included 15 giant construction paper leaves, a bunch of fall colored tissue paper squares and 15 lengths of yarn. Bring your own glue and Voila! You've got a tissue paper fall leaf mosaic. Incredibly easy? Check. Opportunities for creativity? Check. Possibility for immediate trashing? A bit higher than I would like, but with the yarn to hang up the leaf, it will probably survive a little longer.
Another idea that I've come across for quick & easy art activities is the game Who What Where, Jr., which doesn't really result in an art piece to take home, but allows different levels of creativity to combine with gaming strategy for a really fun activity. Our Friends group bought one for the library and I'm looking forward to sharing it with the kids.

Books That Might Make Good Storytimes

Little Gorilla by Bornstein Cute, easy and fast. Good for little kids.
Lola Loves Stories by McQuinn I like the Lola books for little kids and getting them excited about libraries.
Grumpy Bird by Tankard Grumpy Bird gets ungrumpy thanks to his animal buddies. Cute, great pics, wide range of ages.
Are You a Horse? by Rash Great for 1st and 2nd graders, maybe even really smart kindergarteners. A boy gets a saddle for his birthday and goes around asking different animals if they're a horse. Fun!
Read to Tiger by Fore A really good reading and sharing story for wide age range.

Storytime Books That Worked

City Dog, Country Frog by Willems Cute friendship and loss story.
Franklin's Big Dreams by Teague Great story for older kids because its a bit longer and uses bigger words. A boy dreams of travel adventures.
Dragon Stew by Smallman Hilarious tale of five bored vikings who go out in search of a dragon to put in some stew. I had a class of 3rd graders (the ones that think they're too old for storytime kind) rolling with this one and...
Interrupting Chicken by Stein Another hilarious story. Its little chicken's bedtime and she wants her dad to tell her a story, but guess what happens every time he gets started? A great way to start or end this book is by telling my favorite knock-knock joke: KNOCK! KNOCK! Who's there? Interrupting cow. Interrupting co... MOOOO!!

Impromtu Art Activity

Magazines, tissue paper die cuts, feathers and old flyers.

After a while of specialized programs, and especially if you're a pack rat like me, you've got a lot of left-over, and almost-run-out materials. And when you look at your disheveled craft supply shelves and start thinking of just throwing it straight into the dumpster, stop yourself cold. It's finally time for a collage art activity!
Gather all the supplies you would like to see rid of, then some standard supplies, i.e. markers, crayons, scissors, glue (I already have these in a kit ready to go, just in case), as well as some blank construction paper. Take them out at your regular art activity time and explain to the kids about collage art. Show them some pictures of collage artists' works e.g. Romare Bearden, Bettye Saar. Introduce them to some collage art books like Cool Collage by Hanson. Definitely show them some picture books that use collage art as illustrations including Eric Carle, Amy Wilson Sanger, and Louis Ehlert books, and titles such as Tar Beach by Ringgold. You get the idea.
Then let them at it. Things will get real simple or real interesting depending on their skill and imagination.

The Night Before Christmas Song

I love traditions. They make me feel warm, loved and safe. So when I come up with new programs for the library I like to try and do stuff that can repeated every year. Something that the kids can look forward to and hopefully incorporate into their personal lives as they grow too old to participate. At the library I'm at they already had a couple standing traditions that I have continued since I started, but I also have begun a couple of my own: The Valentine Cookie Decorating Party, the Sidewalk Chalk Festival, the Monarch Butterfly Project and the Halloween Costume Making Workshop.
What I really would like to do is to come up with a tradition for Christmastime, but I've had to find a way to overcome the political hurdles (you can't have "Christmas" programs, they have to be "winter holiday" programs) and the fact that regular patrons are most likely out-of-town or not interested in coming to the library.
Last year I tried the Winter Reading Challenge, which I'm also going to try again this year, although participation was very low. But my big idea that I've basically been too scared to do, is a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Today I found the song version of the poem online! I sang this in my high school concert choir and it was so much fun to sing! In fact, I might have to say that this is one of my all-time favorite songs.
Now I'm really motivated to try and build a program around it.
Thinking....thinking...

Monarch Butterfly Project

At a meeting sometime last year, I learned about a symbolic migration of monarch butterflies participatory program. You lead kids in creating craft butterflies that are eventually sent to the area in Mexico where the actual butterflies fly to for the winter. School children in Mexico care for the paper butterflies and in the Spring they send them back. You don't get your paper butterflies back, because just like the real butterflies, they don't always fly back to the same northern place. I thought that would be a great activity that I could draw out for a whole week. And it was. This is the second year the kids and I have participated in this program and this year turned out even better. I call it the Monarch Butterfly Project. It is a lesson, storytime and an art activity each day for three days.

Last year, my programs weren't as structured and I focused on the art activities. We made flat paper butterflies using art supplies one day and hand print butterflies the next day. I think I repeated the flat paper butterflies on the third day, as well. Another big difference was that last year, each child made an individual paper butterfly to send to Mexico, but this year the program has asked that we make a class butterfly, or in the library's case, a group butterfly.

This year, each day of the project produced a different group. After I read them a Monarch butterfly related story and we went over the basics of the life of a butterfly, the kids created a craft butterfly that they took home. To participate in the group butterfly, I had them write their name on a sticker, which I placed into a big butterfly that I cut out of a manila folder.

Day 1: Flat cardstock butterfly decorated with art supplies. I used this Butterfly Template.

Day 2: Recycled butterfly made with a TP roll, and cut-out magazine page wings. I'm not sure where I got the idea from, but it kinda goes like the DLTK one. You need:
*TP rolls*ripped out magazine pages (I looked for vibrant colors and visual textures and patterns)
*pipe cleaners (or some other antennae)
*glue stick and tape stapler
*stuff to decorate with
1. I used a glue stick and tape to wrap construction paper over the TP roll, but you can leave it plain or use something else to cover and/or decorate it.
2. I created a half-wing template (use the DLTK wing template or draw your own), folded the magazine page in half, aligned the flat side of the wing template to the fold, traced it out, cut and ta-da there are your wings, which you can now glue stick to the TP roll.
3. cut a full-length pip cleaner in half. Then fold the half in half. Staple the folded half to the TP roll (can be kinda tricky). Move and twist them them around until you have butterfly antennae. 4. Decorate with whatever supplies you have.

Day 3: Tissue paper and pipe cleaner butterfly mobile
Not as many kids participated in this one, and the kids that did didn't really get the idea. So I might not repeat this craft. But I got the idea from this DLTK Coffee Filter Butterfly Craft. Instead of coffee filters, I used tissue paper, which I have plenty of in the library and pipe cleaners. I made a basic mobile by gluing craft sticks together and tying the butterflies on using ribbon. Got that idea from the Monarch Butterfly Mobile in Fun and Simple Pacific West State Crafts by June Ponte.

Addendum, Spring 2010:
Journey North News Alert
I got an envelope back in the spring of my library's first year of participation, only to find one paper butterfly had returned with the sad news that the school in Mexico where our paper butterflies had been sent to had been destroyed by flooding. It was sad news.

Addendum, April 10, 2011:
In an effort to clean up my art supplies I started doing a collage/make-what-you-want art activity at least once a month. At one of these programs, I made this butterfly collage with some butterfly die cuts, magazine cut outs, feathers, tissue paper and crayons:

Manga puts boy in extensive therapy? I Think Not!

its been a while, folks, but i finally found a story worth reporting on Local Library News. Please follow the link to read the story: Mom: Son in 'extensive therapy' after viewing library book.
can you find a better title than that. i'll wait until you finish reading, its a quick article......not yet? okay. How about now? Great.

this is a prime example of parents shucking their parental duties and leaving the crap for us service workers to pick up. i say it at least once a day, so it should be on the blog, too: I AM NOT A BABYSITTER. the library is a place for you to share with your kids, not drop them off and hope for the best. you are supposed to explore the shelves with them and/or teach them how to explore the shelves on their own. we don't (and its really against our ethics) to police what adults or kids pick up or check out for their own purposes.

that being said, what's really going on here? a crazy lady, who clearly passed on her hanging-by-a-thread-sanity to her child is blaming the library for her child "being in a home for extensive therapy." One itty bitty manga didn't drive your kid insane. you did.

Here! Here! to the crestview library staff. may they stand (as long as their bricks and mortar last) up to the book burners, zealots and crazies toting a solid policy and excellent customer service as their tools.

fight on.