Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  But let's not forget about one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving: a day that's wonderful not only because of the delicious meal with which we celebrate it, but also for the reminder to think about the many things for which we are grateful.  I have a lot to be thankful for this year: my one year old puppy, Oliver, my family, my health, and a job that is so incredibly rewarding and fulfilling!  Not many people can say that they have a job that they look forward to going to every day.  Every day except for Monday, that is, but that's just because I sleep like a perpetual teenager.  Once I've had my coffee I am always happy to be back at work again, because I get to do fun stuff like the following.

Every Wednesday our library holds a program called "Wacky Wednesday"- a program intended for school-aged children (6-12), where kids can come to the library after school for a fun activity.  For the night before Thanksgiving, I decided of course to have a turkey related program.

First, I read Turkey Trouble by Wendy Silvano. The kids were really engaged with the story, which was especially great given the wide range of ages: I ended up having children as young as three and as old as eight attend the program.  I have a flannel that I created for the story.  The book adapts well for the flannel format as the turkey keeps on trying to outsmart the farmer by dressing up as different farm animals so he doesn't end up being Thanksgiving dinner!  I like to use a flannel whenever possible to add that extra visual engagement with a story.

Next, we did a Turkey Book craft borrowed from B-Inspired Mama.  I pre-made little books for the kids by folding a paper bag in half, hole punching two holes along the fold, and affixing a rubber band around a popsicle stick to create the book's spine.  Initially, I created a model craft very much like the example from the aforementioned blog post, but instead used AcccCut maple leaves for the turkey's feathers.

However, with a busy week before Thanksgiving, I ran out of time to pre-cut the features of the turkey's face.  To make my life easier, I just used AccuCut turkeys for the kids to decorate and paste onto their books.  I ended up not making an example to show them, which I think helps encourage kids' creativity because they are then not preoccupied with making their craft look just like the example.  I also wrote "I'm Thankful For..." along each spine to encourage kids to think about the true meaning of Thanksgiving and decorate their books with things they are thankful for.  I melted a little bit (actually, a lot) when a little cutie drew herself and me and told me, "I'm thankful for you, Miss Cassie."  Then she drew her mom and dad on the next page.  Sweetness overload!

I really liked this craft and plan on using it again in the future- you could use countless themes by having kids create a book about really anything, and the preparation ended up being a lot easier than I thought, once I decided to calm down and not be so type-A about having everything perfect.  I need to remind myself of this often, I think that a lot of librarians have the tendencies to be perfectionists, but when it comes to kids crafting, letting them do their own thing ends up being much better for all of us.

Thanks for reading and hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

November Crafts

I am a little late on this post but I was too busy stuffing myself with turkey this weekend to get to my blogging.  Since November is over, however, I thought now's the time to showcase my November crafts before it's too late!

One of the crafts I did was simple bears.  I wanted to do something that brought attention to the changing of the seasons, and used the "Teddy Bear" craft to talk to kids about how bears hibernate for the winter.  I also put out lots of bear books on display for checkout.  Who doesn't love a classic teddy bear book?

I gave the little ones a wide selection of multicolored "puff-balls" (I actually have no idea what those little buggers are called) so that they could be creative and make their teddy bears any size, shape, and color they wanted.  I ended up seeing many different types of bears!  It was a simple craft, only requiring glue, puff balls, and googly eyes.  (Number one rule of crafting: googly eyes make everything better).

For a Thanksgiving craft, I had the tiny tots make paper bag turkey centerpieces.  I really wanted to do something different than the old traced hand routine.  This was by far the best turnout I have ever gotten for a craft event, and kids and parents alike got really involved and had a lot of fun.

 I pre-made the turkey "bodies" by crumpling a paper bag, inserting that into another paper bag, and then twisting the top around to form a head; finally gluing that piece down.  I also pre-cut turkey feet, waddles, and beaks out of colorful foam paper.

Along with these materials, some feathers, and of course googly eyes, it was up to the little ones to decorate their turkeys as they saw fit.  And we ended up with some very gorgeous turkey centerpieces; even one with false eyelashes!  I hope the children proudly displayed them during their Thanksgiving dinners!

Thanksgiving in the Library

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  Yes, it is because of the food and the fact that my mom is an incredibly good cook.  Thanksgiving dinner is the best meal of the year!  This wonderful holiday also gives me the opportunity to have all sorts of fun with construction paper.

For our large bulletin board, I created a "Cornucopia of Books".  This was especially fun for me because I got to showcase many of my favorite titles that I have read as a child and throughout the years... Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Judi and Ron Barrett's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline, just to name a few! 

I also created little paper pilgrim hats for our library giraffes, Miss Mildred and Humphrey. Could they be any cuter?