Crafty Kids: Caterpillar Magnet

For March's Crafty Kids program I recreated a craft that I saw for sale as a kit in a catalog many months ago. (Unfortunately I don't remember which one.)  The original craft called for gluing pom poms directly onto a clothes pin, adding googly eyes to the front on and then sticking magnet tape to the other side of the clothes pin.  I felt like the kit was a little too expensive and that all the supplies could be purchased for less then the cost of a kit for 12 kids.  Then I came across the blog Walk in the Sun, and really liked how they added the leaf so that there would be more surface area for the gluing of the caterpillars.  At the library we have Ellison machines that will cut massive quantities of simple shape easily as long as we have the stencil for it, so I had one of the pages cut the leaves with the Ellison machine ahead of time.

Caterpillar Magnet

Supplies:

1 clothes pin

Magnet tape

1 card stock leaf

6 small pom poms (I used 3/4 inch pom poms)

1 large pom pom (I used a 1 inch pom pom)

2 wiggle eyes

Markers

glue

1.  Glue your 2 wiggle eyes to your large pom pom.  This is the front of your caterpillar

2.  Draw a leaf pattern onto your cardstock leaf while you wait for your wiggle eyes to dry

3.  Glue your pom poms onto your green leaf; leaving the face for last.  

4.  Get a piece of magnet tape and stick it to your clothespin while giving your caterpillar a little time to dry.

5.  Once your caterpillar is mostly dry glue your leaf onto your clothes pin.  

Tween/Teen Crafts: Upcycled T-Shirt Scarves

One of my favorite go to crafts for tween girls is the Recycled T-Shirt Scarf.  For my purposes I usually go 4th-6th grade on this, however at a recent parental request the next time I do this I will be including 3rd graders with a adult present.  I've also had success with special needs girls and a parent.  When I advertise the program I do request that each child bring an old adult XL t-shirt from home, however I usually also will go through my things just before and bring a couple of extra t-shirts from home because someone ALWAYS forgets.

I originally found this craft on Cut Out + Keep.  Cut Out + Keep is also one of my favorite crafting sites.  Membership is free and you can post all different kinds of crafty projects and check out crafty projects posted by others.

I like a long skinny scarf so that's the one I made, but there can actually be quite a bit of variation.  The instructions for the T-Shirt scarf can be found here.

Story Time: F is for Fish

My coworker did the letter E so it was now my turn to do letter F.  I poked around my usual websites and couldn't find anything that I felt worked for me.  Then I found a new blog that featured alphabet crafts Miss Maren's Monkeys and they had this amazing F is for Fish craft that INCLUDED templates.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before but templates really make things so much easier.  I did make myself a page of fish eyes so that I would only have to cut out one circle for each eye rather then 2 and so that I would feel like I was wasting less paper.  I also ended up not cutting out the seaweed and bubbles mainly because I thought the kids might like to do their own.  I handed out crayons to the kids and they added their own seaweed, air bubbles and background fish.

While I was able to find many story books for my F is for Fish story time I was very surprised that I could not find a fish or undersea alphabet book for a young child.  I found many versions that were clearly for older readers with complicated scientific vocabulary that I knew wasn't going to work for my preschoolers; so I went with a different alphabet book.  I ended up going with:

Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins

Fidgety Fish by Ruth Galloway

The Animal ABC by Leslie A. Baker

Hooray for Fish is an extremely interactive book.  There were all different kinds of silly fish to identify and there was counting to be done so I had the kids help me identify the fish and help me count.  I also had the kids help me figure out the different animals for each page of The Animal ABC.  With two very active books I found that time passed more quickly then I expected it to.  We sang If You're Happy and You Know It and the Hokey Pokey and called it craft time.  

Teen Craft/All Ages Program: Angry Birds!

So two summers ago a friend of mine who works in another library held a scyfy/anime/general geekery convention for her library.  She asked me to please come an do a booth and I had been dying to do this Live Action Angry Birds craft/game that I saw on 4YA: Inspiration for Youth Advocates which is a blog hosted by a girl I went to library school with.

After watching this video:

I was intimidated by the idea of trying to make birds and pigs all day and keep the booth moving so I decided to make it a carnival game.  I made several birds and pigs ahead of time using the method in the video.  

Then I had my husband help me make two slingshots out of wire hangers, rubber bands and fabric from an old pair of pajama pants.  We got the idea from the book Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction: Build Implements of Spitball Warfare.  I thought about using the rubber bands the way they did in the video however as this was an all day event I felt like if I encouraged kids to launch things with rubber bands the entire staff would be paying for it all day.  I also thought the slingshots were a little more authentic and they made it tougher too.  It was surprising how quickly some people got the hang of the sling shot and how others were just never able get the hang of it.  All in all people seemed to enjoy seeing one of their favorite games come to life.  

I did a second convention at another carnival a few months later and all of the supplies held up although two seemed to be the limit as the birds and pigs started looking a little bit bedraggled and one of my sling shots began needing repairs every few Teens.  

I plan on doing this again sometime in the near future as a program where each kid will make their own bird and piggy and possibly slingshot....depending on how I think the parents will handle that.  It was definitely a lot of fun and I can't wait to do it again.

Story Time: Letter D

So once my coworker did a Letter C story time with a Cookie Monster craft I did a Letter D story time the following week with a D is for Dinosaur craft I saw on Story Time Katie's blog.  Story Time Katie is another one of my go to blogs for story time book suggestions and the occasional story time craft idea, particularly once I saw she had also done a series of alphabet crafts.

So I cut the letter D and 1 large rectangle, 4 small rectangles, an oval and 5 triangles out of construction paper and handed them out to the kids with crayons to draw dinosaur faces and personalize their dinosaurs if they wanted to.

There are so many great dinosaur books that I thought for sure I would have an easy time picking/getting books.  This ended up being both true and not true.  There are a lot of great dinosaur books; they are however, very popular and all checked out.  I had wanted one alphabet dinosaur book, one shape dinosaur book and two dinosaur stories.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the dinosaur shape book I wanted and my second choice was missing.  On the other hand I spent a lot of time on my dinosaur alphabet book identifying other items that also began with that pages letter, so three books was okay.  Next time I will request my books earlier though.

ABC T-Rex by Bernard Most

Dinosaur vs The Library by Bob Shea

How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen

Had I been able to find it I also would have done Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald.  

As I mentioned earlier for each page of ABC T-Rex we tried to identify additional items on the page that began with that letter of the alphabet.  For Dinosaur vs The Library I had the kids roar with me and help me figure out all the other animal sounds.  How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? was a quieter book and at least one of the kids turned around after it was over to tell their Mama that they loved her which was beyond adorable.  For songs I changed If You're Happy and You Know It to If You're A Dinosaur and You Know It; we clapped our hands, swished our tails and roared.  

I wanted to end on the Hokey Pokey but one of my regulars adamantly refused.  One minute we were happy and we knew it and suddenly we were nearing meltdown territory.  I always feel this is dangerous when I have less than 6 children as it seems to spread quickly.  This has become even more worrisome now that I've noticed one of my other regulars will repeat the feelings and actions of the other kids.  If one of the kids says they had a good weekend, then she had a good weekend.  If a second kid says they had a bad weekend, then she says she had a bad weekend. It always makes me giggle a little bit since even when she repeats something negative she still seems fairly happy about it; I still feel like the tables could easily turn so I ditched the hokey pokey.  Instead we did the Skinamarinky Dinky Dink song.  

Story Time: Shapes

So when we restarted our Story Time program in January (we take a break for December) my coworker told me she had found a Letter C craft that she really wanted to do.  When she first told me this I thought she had the first story time of the new year, but it turned out she had the second story time of the year and I had the first story time so I scrambled around for something else to do.

On the All Kids Network I saw this great Polar Bear Shape craft.  I didn't have time to get felt so I used construction paper instead.  I was also a little over winter and it's crazy weather so I decided to do it as a brown bear craft.  I handed out crayons so the kids could draw in a background and bear face along with the shapes cut out of construction paper and glue sticks.

For story time I read 4 books and we sang the Happy Birthday song (b/c I was misinformed that it was someone's birthday) and the Hokey Pokey Song.  I did two imagination books and 2 books that were more directly shape related.  The books were:

Round is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski

It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw

Shape Capers by Cathryn Fallwell

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

Round is a Pancake was very pretty but not as much of a hit as the other books because it was less interactive.  The kids did like the end part where we looked around the picture book area for other round things.  It Looked Like Spilt Milk, Not a Box and Shape Capers were all super interactive.  I had the kids identifying shapes or what things were on every page and they had a lot of fun (although I fully admit even the parents and I had some trouble figuring out a couple of the items on It Looked Like Spilt Milk).  All in all I think this was one of my more fun and successful story times.  

Sing Out

From the good folks over at VSL another fun website. This one is called Let Them Sing it For You. It was created for the internet platform of Src for Swedish National Radio. The idea is that you type a sentence in and the words are sung back to you. Each word is taken from a different song, with a different famous singer and a different melody.

The site is extremely simple looking a gray site comes up with the name, a red play button and a message telling you if the window doesn't pop up click here. The pop up window is even simpler a box for text with a play button on the bottom. You simply type in your words and hit the play button. Then it plays for you. Once your message has been played back to you, you have the option of e-mailing it to a friend.

The words you hear in any given sentence can come from 1989 Wicked Games by Chris Isaak to what could be a Def Leopard song. My favorite part of this program is trying to figure out what song each word comes from.

Serious Dose of Cuteness

Zooborns is possibly the cutest website ever. They pull all new stories from other publications regarding the birth of new animals at zoos around the world and post them up on their site.

Having a crappy day? Check out the baby sea horses at Monterey Bay Aquarium. They are so tiny they don't even wrap all the way around a blade of grass. Who could be sad after looking at a cutie like that.

Also great for children, who will appreciate seeing other creatures their own age. It's updated on a regular basis, be sure to check back frequently.

Start the New Year Off Right

with some new wall paper. Smashing Magazine is a British publication that focuses on web design and developing with a serious focus on creativity. They also have a great blog.

As a way to inspire creativity in the new year Smashing Magazine will be providing several different wall papers each month. Each wall paper includes a calendar for the month. Artists are invited to submit their own designs for future wall papers. For January there are 35 different wall papers that will appeal to people with all different artistic temperaments you can access by clicking here. The wall papers are easy to download, just pick the size you want, then right click and select set as background.

Smashing Magazine also invites users to submit their own wall papers for future months. You don't need anything but your own creativity. Check out submission guidelines here.

Tis the Season

For all kinds of cutesy holiday tv specials and websites.

Via The Fire Wire I found out that the website TV Tango has been kind enough to figure out when all holiday related television special will be on and what channel they will be on. They have everything you remember from when you were little (Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Eight Crazy Nights) to the esoteric (Deathklok Christmas Special, Bam Margera's Where's Santa, Powerpuff Girls Twas the Flight Before Christmas). They have also included every holiday cooking show; for help planning your fabulous holiday meals or for absorbing virtual calories.

From the Mental Floss blog, there is Santa's Blog. How cool is that. You can get Santa's thoughts on all the goings on at the North Pole. Readers can even follow Santa on Twitter, great for helping get into the holiday spirit.

Tickle the Ivories from your Computer

Another gem from the people at VSL. Virtual Piano for Songwriters is a website that is just what it says; a virtual piano that can be played straight from your computer. The songbook that sits on the piano provides detailed instructions for using the piano. The only problem I had was figuring out how to use the arrows on the bottom. Otherwise number keys on your keyboard can be used to play chords and to play an individual key on the piano, just click with your mouse.

The creators recommend it be used for composing or beginner learning, but honestly it's just fun. So whether you have dreams of composing your own music or are just looking for a fun slightly educational way to kill time, this is something to consider.

Movies and Book Series

The Mid-Continent Public Library has some great readers advisory stuff going on. Two of my favorite features from their site are Series and Sequels and Based on a Book.

Series and Sequels allows the user to find out what's next in a YA or Children's series. Since some series never really number their books and trilogy's such as the Maximum Ride series keep getting made longer, this is a quick and easy way to find out what's next or make sure you actually own an entire series. Users can search by book title, author, series title or subject.

Based on a Book lets readers find out if the book has been made into a movie, thus allowing the neverending, always heated and amusing for spectators "is the book better then the movie" debate to continue.

Road Trip!!!

In a couple of weeks I plan on going on a road trip with my friends down to Philadelphia for Roller Derby nationals (woo hoo). One of my favorite sites to check before I go anywhere is Atlas Obscura. Atlas Obscure is a website that lists all of the weird, strange, beautiful things and places that only the locals know about.

Heading to Philadelphia like I am? Then you might want to check out the Sonorous Stones in Ringing Rocks Park. The Stones in Ringing Rocks Park create a clear bell type tone when struck with a hammer. According to the site, not all of the stones create tones that can be heard by the human ear, but they do all create a tone. To add to the aura of this incredible geological wonder, why the stones create this tone is still unknown.

The Atlas Obscura covers places in numerous countries on all seven continents. If you are in Germany you should check out the Waldspirale, an incredible apartment complex designed by Austrian artist and architect Friedenshreich Hundertwasser, full of life, literally. The apartment complex has trees and other greenery built into it.

The user can search by place or type of attraction and the site is full of interactive maps. Check it out before your next trip or just because.

Rainy Day Activities

I don't know what everyone else's weekend was like, but here all it did was rain. Of course this made me remember one of my favorite rainy day activities, paper craft. Paper craft is the art of cutting and folding paper into fun shapes. My favorite papercraft site is Cubeecraft. They provide fun full color templates that you can print, cut out and fold into your favorite video game, movie, cartoon and book characters, such as Mario Bros, Scott Pilgrim, various incarnations of Batman and the guys from Ghost Busters. They also have various inanimate objects, such as the mushrooms from Mario Bros, and pretty much every video game console.

Each item is marked with a difficulty level between one (the easiest) and five (the hardest) scissors. A thicker paper is recommended for this; I used 24 lb paper. You can use regular paper, but it is much harder. You can use scissors to cut everything out but it is much easier to use an exacto knife to cut the slots, and also make sure to put cardboard or some kind of mat underneath your paper, so you don't cut tables or floors. Also double check the printing directions on the site, if you aren't careful you could end up losing tabs (that's why my mushroom is a little bit crooked).

Let There Be Art

Odosketch is a website I came across in my online travels. This website is a free flash drawing application. It mimics a sketch book and only offers the most basic of tools, some colors to draw with and an eraser. You can also play back your creations and watch every step you took, even the mistakes. Even the most artistically challenged user can get the hang of it, (I know cause even I was able to use it, check out my ultra cute mushroom).

You can check out new and featured sketches for inspiration, and there is a cloning feature that lets you add to the sketches of others. You have to create an account to save your artwork or use the cloning feature, and promise not to share you're e-mail with anyone else and they don't need any personal information from you beyond that. You can also embed your picture into another website or blog, like I did.