Mother's Day and Art Supplies Clean Up Craft

Last year we made Spoonfuls of Kisses, which was super easy. So I knew that this year I was not interested in anything more complicated than that. Looking around on the net I came across Tulip cards, which looked pretty easy. I've got all the supplies and a volunteer to cut out the template. Couldn't be any easier, could it? Well, that doesn't really matter because I won't make tulip cards ever again. There's nothing wrong with the craft. It is simple and easy, but the kids just didn't get it. None of them knew what tulips were in the first place and almost all of them made the card upside down. This activity just wasn't for them. Maybe older kids would have got it.
Nonetheless, no one went home unhappy. If they didn't like their messed up tulip cards, they had the opportunity to make a craft from my Art Supplies Clean Up Kit.
What's that you ask? All the odds and ends, recycled boxes and containers and the last bits of art supplies that are just too little to use for a group craft that I've been saving. Makes for great collage art activities. I wrote about them before....

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: