Campfire Stories for the Fourth

Last July, I did a program called Campfire Stories, where we read stories around the "campfire," did a fire-themed craft, and made s'mores. It was mostly a success (aside from me not being wild about my story choices or really loving my craft).

So this year, I brought out the campfire again, but to alleviate my issues with last year's version of the program, I made the program less "campfire-themed" and more about July 4th.

When the kids came in the room, I had the lights out, the campfire set up on the floor with logs around it (care of my husband's wood burning stove stash), books set up, and pieces of foam mats (borrowed from my Share & Play Babies program) as spots to sit on (because I will forever associate campfires with Girl Scout camping, where we had to tote homemade situpons through the woods so we'd have a cleared-off spot to plant our butts).

Here's how it looked:

I had each kid plop on a mat (with the flashlights they'd brought with them) and I began to read. Before the program I'd pulled five books out and decided that I'd choose my stories based on the group. I wound up reading Red, White, and Boom! by Lee Wardlaw and Should I Share My Ice Cream?: An Elephant & Piggie Book by Mo Willems.

Red, White, and Boom! was only okay. I kind of felt like I had to read a Fourth of July book since this was a Fourth of July program, but when I looked through a bunch of them, I didn't find one that I absolutely loved. I picked this one because it was easy, the illustrations were nice, and it rhymed. But I didn't love it. And from the looks of the kids, I don't think they did either. Maybe if I start looking now I'll find a better book for next year.

Anyway, it's good that I read this book first because the kids had a pretty good attention span at the start of the program and, once I announced that  I'd be reading Elephant and Piggie next, all was right again with the world.

I may have bragged about this before but I have to say, I do a mean Should I Share My Ice Cream? monologue.

I considered reading a third book but decided to skip it since there was so much else to get to. Still lined up I had two crafts, a photo backdrop, and s'mores!

The first craft was fireworks painting, stolen from CraftyMorning.com.

It's so easy! It's just toilet paper rolls with slits cut vertically along the bottom so you can fan them out to make burst-shapes. I did change my version of this craft a tiny bit from CraftyMorning. I swapped out the white paper for black (way cooler!) and traded the red, white, and blue paint for the similar-but-prettier magenta, white, and teal. I also put out white crayons so the kids could add details if they wanted to and, at the end, I offered red or green glitter (which was only to be applied by adults) to top off their fireworks!

It didn't occur to me that I had already put out the 4th of July Self-Adhesive Shapes (these from Oriental Trading) in preparation of our second craft, so many of the kids wound up sticking these on their fireworks scenes as well. Luckily we had plenty (500 to be exact), so this was no big deal.

Here are a few of the beautiful fireworks scenes. They came out really nice!

  

Next it was time for craft number two! Picture frames! I used these frames from Oriental Trading, these Fourth of July stickers from Oriental Trading, and this fireworks backdrop from Oriental Trading. Here are two of the results:

This was fun and cute, but not without a hitch. The plan was: The kids were supposed to come up to the backdrop one-by-one as they were working on their crafts, get their photo taken, and then I was supposed to email the pictures really quickly to our clerk, Mary, who would hop into her office, print them out and then come back and deliver them to the children before the end of the program.

"I don't think so!" said the library's wifi!

The kids were happy to make their various crafts, then sit around the fire with s'mores, but unfortunately, everyone had to wait for their pictures until I could make my phone and the wifi play nicely with each other.

S'mores around the fire was the last thing I had lined up the night. Like last year's program, I used marshmallow fluff, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. No, the chocolate bar doesn't melt next to fluff the way it does next to a roasted marshmallow, but my options were limited here without access to anything hot! And I wasn't about to have a line of kids at the microwave.

Anyway, does this look like it didn't work to you?

Nope. It worked perfectly! And do these kids look like they're upset by their non-melted chocolate?

Nope. They were enjoying themselves completely!

As the program came to a close, Mary started to appear with some of the printed photos. The wifi finally cooperated! The parents and kids were actually totally content to wait a couple of minutes extra so they could take home their pictures. What a great community I work in!

Here are few of the cuties against the backdrop:

What worked least: The pictures! What a mess that whole thing became. While it all worked out fine in the end, it certainly wasn't ideal for me to have to send the photos to Mary three times or for the families to have to wait around an extra 10 minutes after the program for the pictures they were promised. This needs to be ironed out if I decide to repeat the program next year!

What worked best: The obvious answer here is the s'mores, because the snack is pretty much always what works best in these types of programs. The insightful answer here is the fireworks painting paired with the foam stickers, because it was the perfect mix of process and product, it was mixed media, and it included the use of recycled materials (and then, of course, countered that with foam stickers. Oh well.)

Such a fun program! Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July!

Summer Solstice Stories

June 21 is my favorite day of the year--the summer solstice, the longest day of sun, the OFFICIAL start of summer, and the day before my birthday! Last Wednesday, to mark the day, I did a program called Summer Solstice Stories with my favorite age group, the 3-5 year-olds.

I started by reading three summer themed books: First, How Will We Get to the Beach by Bridgitte Luciani (which I lost my felt board for! It was such a good visual aid in the past and I was afraid the book wouldn't work without it, but luckily, the kids totally got it anyway), then Duck Dunks by Lynne Berry, and last, my favorite, Elephant and Piggie: Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems, of which I must say, I do a mean dramatic reading.

These books worked. I wasn't completely confident about Duck Dunks going in, but even that one was a total success.

Then it was time to decorate beach balls. I ordered these from Oriental Trading. I made sure to include in the newsletter description of the program that we would be using Sharpies. This is not exactly my craft medium of choice with the pre-k crowd, but I really wanted to do this craft and Sharpies are the only thing that will work on this material. It worked out fine. I made sure to tell everyone that these markers did NOT come out of clothes and to be very careful. They were.

The kids LOVED decorating the beach balls! Most decorated it after their parents/caregivers inflated it first (I don't have the lung capacity to pre-inflate more than one or two beach balls) but a few chose to decorate it flat and blow it up after.

After they were done coloring, they kids just loved bouncing and tossing their balls around the room. Like playing with the balloons in the Unbirthday Party was, this was probably the best part. It's always the simplest thing that is the most fun!

What worked least: This program was simple and successful. There wasn't really anything that didn't work! Yay!

What worked best: The craft. I was worried about the Sharpies but everyone was careful and, in the end, they got to take home something cool! Better still, they got to play at the library with something cool. And play catch with the librarian! Super fun!

Campfire Stories

What's better than camping as a kid? The smell of the fire, eating totally different food, s'mores, sleeping bags, and walking a quarter of a mile to use the bathroom--it's the BEST! (Please note: As an adult, I hate camping and always will).

Last week, I channeled everything I loved about camping as a child and did a program called Campfire Stories! 

I had the lights out as the kids came in the room, and I told them all to sit around the fire with me. They were totally intrigued by this! Why was this thing there? What was it made out of? What is hot? Once they were totally sure it wasn't real fire, they couldn't stop touching it--just because they could!

While seated nicely around the fire, I conducted a camping-themed storytime. First I read Curious George Goes Camping by Margret and H.A. Rey, which may have been a little too long. For this very reason, it was my first time doing a Curious George book in storytime, but I think it at least partially worked. Also, who even cared what I was reading with that AWESOME FIRE in the middle of the circle?

After Curious George, I introduced my childhood favorite camp song: Down By the Bay. I just loved this one in pre-school. I made a simple Down By the Bay felt board (using photo copies from this Raffi book) many years ago and I used the pieces from it as we sang. Have you ever seen a whale with a polka dot tale?

Last, I read Scare a Bear by Kathy-jo Wargin, which again, I think just couldn't compete with the fire! What can ya do?

Then it was (finally) s'mores time:

I used marshmallow fluff instead of marshmallows so the s'more would stay together without having to deal with any kind of cooking. It worked well and the kids were definitely not shy about taking seconds and thirds. And there were a lot of marshmallow fluffy faces by the end of the program.

Last, we did our craft. I'm always very self-conscious when I do just an Oriental Trading craft. I'm afraid it makes me look lazy but this one was really cute and actually fun to do:

It can be found here, from Oriental Trading. It's actually a little complicated! First you have to spread a glue/water mixture (not included) over the clear, fire-shaped "belly" of the thing. Then you place squares of tissue paper wherever you want over the mixture. If the squares come up the edges, you have to cut them neatly(ish) once they're kind of dry enough. Then you glue on the ribbon for hanging and the included foam outline. And last, you add the other foam pieces, the logs and rocks, on top. It's an effort! Here are a couple of samples:

What worked least: I searched really hard for good, camping-themed books and even still, I wasn't wild about my selection. And it seems the kids weren't either. The books were ok, but I could see that as I read, all the kids wanted to do was play with the fire. And some did. 

What worked best: The fire! Hands down! Apparently, the secret to a successful program is a fake fire.

Welcome Summer

I did a program last night called Welcome Summer. It was done in two sessions: one at 6:00 for ages 3-5 and one at 7:00 for grades K-2.

The sign-ups for both sessions were mediocre, and the attendance was, of course, even less still. I wasn't expecting the night to be as much fun as it was, because, well, it's usually just less fun with a small group, but these small groups really did enjoy themselves!

Both session had the same general plan:

20-25 minutes storytime
20-25 minutes craft

In the first session, the ages 3-5 one, I read How Will We Get to the Beach by Bridgitte Luciani (accompanied by a felt board I made a few years back) and then we sang Five Green and Speckled Frogs with the monkey mitt.

After the storyime potion, I let the kids decorate plain white beach balls from Oriental Trading with permanent markers (a scary concept with children this young, but it's the only way!) and, because some kids work really fast, I also put out some fan templates that I found on Aylee Bits.

It all worked better than I had anticipated. How Will We Get to the Beach has been a tried-and-true storytime favorite for me for years. It requires the children to pay attention. It's interactive, it's  silly, and it's a real story with a real plot. It's just all around perfect and always works. Last night was no exception.

Moving along to the craft: There have been times in the past where I've felt like the kids weren't into whatever craft I had for them. Or times where they finished it quick, got bored, and asked to leave early. I think it was this fear that drove me to put out the fan templates as a second craft. However, I didn't actually need them! As the kids finished decorating their the beach balls, they just straight up played with them. They threw them up and around and kicked them and bounced them and totally could not have cared less about whether there was a second craft or not. So simple! And they all had a really great time!

Next it was time for the K-2 session. I struggled a lot with planning this one because I got hung up with the fact that it was advertised as including songs. I've never done songs with this age group before and I agonized about what songs I could sing with the older children, mainly those who are in 2nd (and now almost 3rd) grade.

In the end, I decided no songs was best, and (at the suggestion of my colleague) replaced the singing with a giant group Madlib. Mostly, it worked.

Despite the kids at the younger end struggling with the parts of speech, they definitely enjoyed the Madlib. They weren't in complete hysterics for the entire story like I was when I did Madlibs as a kid, but they giggled appropriately when I read the line "Last summer, my little brother fell in a chalkboard and got poison sunflower all over his belly."

They were antsy though, so I moved them on to the craft after this.

Again, they could not have cared less about the fan craft. In fact, I don't even think they acknowledged the fans. After they colored the beach balls, they moved right on to playing with them, just like the younger group did. They were so funny and giddy, bouncing and throwing the balls all over and then wildly chasing them around the room. Why did I not realize it would be so simple? They were making a toy. Of course.

What worked best: I was nervous about using the Sharpies with the younger kids, but I told them to be careful and, somehow, they were! Also, due to the smallish sign-up, there was a lot of empty "playing space" in the room, and that also really worked. The time at the end of the programs when the kids played with their beach balls, was definitely the highlight for everyone.

What worked least: The Madlib with the second group was just ok. There was only one girl in the group had actually ever done a Madlib before, and although she had assured the other kids that it was "so fun and really funny," it felt a little school-ish for a while as I asked the kids to come up with various parts of speech on the spot.

Anyway, this was a fun night. Even though I wouldn't call it one of my all-time greatest programs, the kids definitely had a good time and left happy.

Welcome summer!