Happy Birthday, Lewis Carroll!

We have a recurring program for children ages 6-12 called "Terrific Tuesdays".  What's so terrific about it?  For me, mostly the fact that I get to create a fun program using any ideas I want!  The children's staff switches off every week so the kids here at the library always get to try something different- sometimes it's a storytime, a craft, games; the sky's the limit!

I was scheduled for Terrific Tuesday on January 27th, which also happens to be the birthday of our dearly departed Lewis Carroll, the author of  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  So I decided to throw him a birthday (un-birthday?) party.  

I always like to make note of the literary context of my programs, so I began by asking the children if they had seen the popular Disney movie Alice in Wonderland (Most of them hadn't!). My segue into "Well did you know that it was a book before it was a movie?" didn't work well for that reason. However, I had the book out on display and after the program, many of the attendees were interested in it.

No party is complete without games- so instead of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" (another game that most of them had not heard of or played - am I just getting old?), we played "Pin the Smile on the Cheshire Cat".  They loved it and it was super easy to create, just a bit of picture editing and playing around in Publisher, a large poster board, 11x17 paper, staples, and scotch tape.  And a lovely teen volunteer to cut out thirty cat smiles for you helps too.

"Two, Five, and Seven painting the rosebush"
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by
Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel, 1865.

"You're nothing but a pack of cards!"
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by
Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel, 1865.

Next, I told the children about the chapter where Alice enters the Queen of Hearts' garden to find little live playing cards painting her roses red (the Queen hates white roses!).  We made our own little card men out of playing cards, pipe cleaners, construction paper, and googly eyes.  Because we tend to get a lot of wee little ones for this program, I decided to pre-make the "bodies" of the card guys. Then they glued pre-cut hearts onto their guys, glued on eyes, and drew on faces.  I don't think I've ever had a craft program go over so well as this did.  High attendance, compliments from parents, children begging to make more... you name it!  I think it helped that Valentine's Day is coming up and these little guys would make the cutest valentines.  Interested in replicating the craft? Please do! Just follow the directions below!

Materials needed:

• A deck of playing cards
• Red construction paper
• Scissors
• Googly eyes (optional, these can also be drawn in)*
• Red pipe cleaners
• Gluesticks
• Stapler
• Pencil or lollipop for the guy to hold (also optional)**
• Markers or crayons 

*But my rule of thumb is that everything is better with googly eyes.  

**WHY OH WHY DID I NOT THINK OF PAINTBRUSHES UNTIL JUST NOW??!!

Directions:

1. Punch a hole in four corners of one playing card.
2. Feed one pipe cleaner through the top two holes.
3. Feed a second pipe cleaner through the bottom two holes.
4. Staple another playing card to the back of the card (not required, but makes it neater and makes the pipe cleaners stay put)
5. Pre-cut hearts about 2-3" wide for the heads
6. ***I completed steps 1-5 ahead of time, since we get a lot of 2-4 year olds for our programs.  If you are working with older children, they may be able to do these steps themselves.
7. Glue the heart head to the top of the card body.
8. Glue or draw on eyes and face.
9. Twist and twirl pipe cleaner arms and legs any way you want!
10. Add a prop for the arms to hold if you want... something sweet like a lollipop is perfect for Valentine's Day!