Muffins with Mom

What do moms like? Coffee, snacks (in this case muffins--mainly for the alliteration), a low-stress craft, and light piano music! This is what I tried to deliver at my day-before-Mother's-Day program called "Muffins with Mom."

It wasn't complicated. Moms and their kids ages 3 through 3rd grade came in, sat together, enjoyed coffee and muffins, decorated flower pots, and did a simple hand print craft.

I arranged the room so that the table all the way to one side had the muffins and coffee and the table all the way to the other side of the room had the craft supplies: paint, some small decorations (gems and pom poms), and tacky glue. The tables in the middle were arranged so that each setting had a flower pot and flower pot tray to paint and decorate, an empty paint pallet, and paint brush. Then I also put a small pile of the hand print craft on each table.

I told everyone that only the grown ups would get the paint and craft supplies from the back table and it worked out perfectly. That way the kids weren't even tempted to mess with any of that stuff. Here is a picture of some people getting paint for their pallets:

Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of my snack table set up but it was pretty! I even artfully arranged the muffins on a platter. But here are some pictures of kids and parents working on their flower pots and eating muffins:

The handprint craft I had came from gluedtomycraftsblog.com and was a great, simple, extra small craft. In fact, I have my sample (made by Sadie) hanging above my desk as we speak. People really liked it!

What worked least: This was a total success but I guess, if I'm being super nit-picky, I forgot to put out the water cups for kids to dip their paint brushes in? I mean, this was a two-minute problem that was easily rectified the second I realized it, but I don't know, I'm just looking for a "least," I guess.

What worked best: The crafts! They were the perfect choice!

Overall, this was a really nice program that I left feeling really happy with. Everyone had fun and I genuinely think that I created the sort of "chill mood" I was aiming for (thanks partially to the piano music playlist I found on Spotify!). The patrons definitely played a factor in the success of this program too. I had SUCH a great group of families in attendance! This is a definite must-repeat for next Mother's Day.

National Oreo Cookie Day Taste Test (Plus ANOTHER subtle yet important announcement).

Happy National Oreo Cookie Day! I am celebrating by having Oreos at my desk while I work the entire day. But last night my coworker, Jen (of Elephant and Piggie Party), and I celebrated early by hosting a delightfully sweet Oreo taste test. The idea for this had been brewing for a while in our office full of sweets-lovers. In fact, every time my department head brought in a new Oreo flavor for her staff (us) to sample, we always talked about how we should "make a program out of this one day." Then one day, one of us (me? Jen? My department head? Someone else?) noticed that March 6th was National Oreo Day and--poof!--a program was born!

We spent the next few months collecting Oreos as we saw them, trying to grab all the flavor possibilities and they shifted into and out of season.

Oreos anyone? I've got almost a years-worth!

The plan was to have the kids walk around and sample each flavor, then quietly vote on what they thought each one was. It was a guessing game. In the end we wound up with 15 options for tasting:

Cinnamon Bun

Red Velvet

Pumpkin Spice

Apple Pie

Cookie Butter

Mocha

Chocolate Hazelnut

Mint

Birthday Cake

Hot & Spicy Cinnamon

Lemon

Coconut Thins

Salted Caramel Thins

Peanut Butter

Peeps

Last night, to set up, we put each of the 15 flavors out in little sample cups with signs that said "Taste #1," "Taste #2," etc. We also had a table in the middle for water bottles and voting. The set-up room looked like this:

Peek-a-boo! I have a 6-month pregnant belly again! I'm due in June!

Then, as the kids entered the room, we had them each start in different spots and move around the tables to sample the 15 different Oreos. It was A LOT OF OREOS. Almost an irresponsible amount of Oreos, really. As they sampled, they wrote down what their flavor guesses were on their voting sheets. I whipped this sheet up in 10-minutes on Publisher. It can be seen below and downloaded here. (Enjoy!)

Some kids really put time and thought in, smelling the cookies and closing their eyes as they nibbled. Others just wrote things like "I have no idea" and "Really yummy" on their sheets. Kids are funny.

After about 25-minutes of sugar consumption, when we saw that many of the kids were wrapping up their flavor guessing, we had them come up to anonymously vote for their favorite. We decided it was better to have them vote before we revealed the answers so nobody could be biased (because Oreos clearly have different cool and uncool ranks?). Jen made the CUTEST ballot box. Look:

Then it was time to reveal the answers! The kids sat down and, cookie flavor-by-cookie flavor, I had them tell me their guesses for each sample. This was fun! A lot of them were really surprised by some of my "big reveals!" Cinnamon Bun, Cookie Butter, and Coconut were some of the biggest shockers.

In the background, while I was revealing all the answers, Jen was totaling up the favorites and compiling a first place, second place, and third place. Just for fun, she and I each took a guess at the winner before the program. My guess was mint, hers was chocolate hazelnut. The actual winner? MINT! Props for me! Here are the group's top 3:

That's #1 Mint, #2 Cinnamon Bun, and #3 Peeps!

What worked least: Does a room full of kids consuming a lot of sugar in less than 30-minutes count for this? If so, that.

What worked best: I think having two of us who were equally responsible for the program in the room-- as in having two librarians as opposed to a librarian and a page-- helped keep what could have been chaos, in some order. Going forward, I don't think I would do any taste test programs solo ever again. This was so much better. It's a two librarian job!

Grandparents' Day Brunch n Craft

For the past two years, admittedly, Grandparents' Day has been a little bit of an afterthought. Because it's in early September, a Grandparents' Day program needs to make its way into the summer newsletter and, for whatever reason, I just don't think about it until about mid-July. Therefore, Grandparents' Day programs of the past have always wound up being drop in crafts. 

But this year was different. This year MY parents became grandparents and Grandparents' Day was a little more in the forefront of my brain. I totally made a huge deal over it. And so we have...

Grandparents' Day Brunch n Craft! Here is my family (including me!) enjoying it:

The program, I'll admit, was awesome. I'll start with the food spread.

The menu above (which was handed out to each grandparent as they entered the room) lists everything we had. It says as follows: Light roast coffee, hot chocolate, bagels with cream cheese and butter, Munchkins, orange juice, fruit salad, and Cheerios with milk. 

Please note: I advertised this as a "light brunch spread" to make sure nobody had irrational, omelet-station-caliber expectations. 

Everyone loves a brunch!

 

And now, on to the crafts! In the newsletter, I touted  "crafts for all ages," so I had to make sure there was something for everyone. It's a good thing I did! I had kids as young as under 1 (ahem, that was my own daughter) and kids as old as 4th grade! Here's what we did:

Hug in an Envelope

I found this craft here. Basically, it's two traced hands strung onto ribbon with hearts in the middle. The center heart (the big, pink one) has a message for grandma/grandpa, and the hearts on each side of it say "Grandma" (or Grammy or Nanna or whatever) and "Grandpa" (or Poppy or Pop-pop or whatever). The sample above is a real sample made by a patron to help me out with this program. I also put out white envelopes for the kids to decorate and then put their "hugs" in, and stickers for sealing them up.

Finger Paint Pictures

I did this craft back in June 2016 in a program called Munchkins with Mommy and Donuts with Daddy. It's a quick craft for the younger crowd and was inspired by this gem on Pinterest. To make it, I found a picture of a dandelion stem online, altered it a tiny bit, added some text, and printed it on card stock. Then the kids finger painted on colorful seeds. Easy and fun! They also had fun improvising more finger paint art along the way.

Paper Plate Awards

I swiped this idea from something similar that I found on Pinterest. I kept it easy by using paper plates that were already gold (these from Oriental Trading). Then I put out pre-punched circles for writing on (because you can't write, even with a Sharpie, on these paper plates without it being a total smudge-fest), pre-cut blue ribbon bottoms (I had a page do this), foam hearts and flowers for decorating (these from Oriental Trading), plus markers, glue and tape. It was cute!

Strawberry Foot Prints

Strawberry foot prints was our "baby craft" and I had three babies present to make it! The sample above (taped to the wall next to the sign) was made by my own sweet, little Sadie. The craft is pretty self-explanatory: Paint baby's feet red, stamp them on white paper (pointing inward if possible), paint green leaves, and add a message (which, in my sample, was "You are berry special!") Then, when the paint is dry, the kindly librarian (me) will add black dots for seeds, cut it out, and laminate the whole finished product for you take home! Here are some pre-dotted, pre-laminated, pre-cut foot berries and the babies who made them:

What worked least: This program was SO much fun. It really felt like a true success. If I were forced to decide on something that didn't work though, I'd say that I wish there could have been a more streamlined way to do the strawberry foot prints. Like, I wish there was way to magically have them dry faster so I could have laminated them on the spot, instead of having to hold on to them until later. But, of the three families who did this craft, one came back a few hours later in the day to pick up the print and was super happy to do so, one mom comes in all the time anyway so I just held hers for her until next time, and one was my daughter. So, really, it totally worked out fine!

What worked best: Totally has nothing to do with the program itself, but having my own family in attendance made the day SO much fun! I loved spending Grandparents' Day with so many great family while still getting to be with my own!

British Party

Last summer, I did a super-fun program called Aussie Taste-Test. The kids loved it, I loved it, and the parents loved it. Basically, it was an all-around win! So I thought that this summer, to piggy-back off it, I'd try a similar British Party! Unfortunately, though, I was not met with the same success.

Here is the craft we did:

It's one of the Queen's royal guards! Thanks, Pinterest!

It's made from old fashioned clothes pins (these from Amazon), clothes pin woodies (these from Amazon), red and black paint, 1.5" black pom-poms (these from Amazon), 1/8" white ribbon, and gold fabric paint (this from Amazon). And I did the eyes in Sharpie.

When the kids first arrived, I told them to paint the bottom half of their clothes pins black and the top half red and then let it sit, with the hopes of giving the paint a chance to dry. Then later on, they could add the details more easily.

Welp, the kids painted super-fast and some actually made the entire thing, despite my instructions and despite how gross and wet the paint was. Off to a good start! By the time we were 10-minutes into the program, everyone was already itching for the next activity. And eyeing the food.

But it wasn't snack time yet! First we had to play "Guess The British Slang," downloadable as a PDF here! This was a PowerPoint presentation I made that consisted of  words like "sausages," "elevator," "sweater," "ice pop," and "flashlight," followed by their English equivalents ("bangers," "lift," "jumper," "ice lolly," and "torch.")

Last year's game of "Guess the Aussie Lingo," downloadable as a PDF here was such a success, I assumed this year's would flow similarly. But it didn't.

I will say that, while this seemed less exciting than last year's equivalent, it was still probably the best part of the program. It was definitely enjoyable and absolutely held the kids' attention. Plus, they did the same funny thing they did last year which was to guess each word by using our word, but saying it with an accent. Example: "Sweatah."

Anyway, it was fun, I just felt like it lacked the overall enthusiasm that last year's Aussie Lingo game had. Maybe I should have started with the snacks.

Once I made sure everyone had clean hands it was time. Finally. On to...

THE SNACKS (aka "sampling of the English sweeties"). Here's what we sampled:

* Cadbury Fingers

* Cream Crackers with Mackay's Lemon Curd

* Cream Crackers with Clivers Blackcurrent Jam

* Jelly Babies

* Refreshers

* Digestives (original biscuits)

* Orange MiWadi

* Blackcurrant MiWadi

This was fun and, if the kids weren't so sugar-crazed, it would have been the best part of the program for sure. They went absolutely WILD for the Cadbury Fingers--so much so that I actively cut them off even though we still had an unopened box--and they said the Refreshers were too sour, which struck me as odd because I honestly don't feel like they are sour at all. But it was fun and everyone tasted everything.

After the snacks, the kids finished the details of their crafts (ahem, those who hadn't already done so, finished the details of their crafts): the pom-pom hat, the ribbon belt, and the gold, fabric paint buttons. This took about 60-seconds and mostly came out messy.

And then I was fresh out of activities.

I'm usually a better planner than this! I felt mad at myself as things slowly slid to chaos. THANK GOODNESS for Mary, the clerk who stayed in the room with me, who quickly decided we should play "Pin the Pence on the Flag."

If you haven't guessed, this game is Pin the Tail on the Donkey but with an English coin and a Union Jack napkin. Make shift? Yes. Life saver? DEFINITELY. The kids were giggly and surprisingly less cheaty than they usually are with pinning games. It worked! By the end of the game we only had about 10-minutes left in the program and I was perfectly content with letting them scoot out a bit early.

Phew!

What worked least: The craft. I think it just required too much meticulousness, a trait that kids in grades 1-5 just don't yet possess. And it was this lack of meticulousness that made them rush through the craft and got my timing all wonky.

What else worked least: I feel sort of embarrassed that I did such a bad job with timing in this program (although we're blaming the kids for that, right?). I'm usually a really good planner with these things but I just did NOT prepare enough stuff to occupy an hour of time. And it totally showed.

What worked best: The PowerPoint game of "Guess The British Slang," though even that wasn't as fun as Guess the Aussie Slang last year.

What worked too well: The food. Man. It was ALL about the food.

And on that note...you win some, you lose some right?

Tostitos & Trivia: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I'd been itching to do a trivia-type program for a while and, when I told my husband that "I need a snack that starts with T for an alliterate trivia program," he immediately came up "Tostitos and Trivia" for me. I was excited! I worked really hard on Tostitos and Trivia!

I came up with 10 questions in 5 different categories (for a grand total of 50 questions), with multiple choice answers, for grades 1-5. IT WAS HARD. I scoured tons of different kids trivia type websites and even still, wound up mostly creating my own questions and, at the very least, creating my own multiple choice answers.

You can download my 50 questions and answers here! The correct answers are the ones in red. 

I labored over the questions for weeks. Then a few days before the program, I put each question on its own sheet of cardstock, picking a different color for each category: Yellow for "Sports and Games," green for "Animals," orange for "Movies & Books," pink for "The World," and blue for "Science & Math." Then I taped them all up to the wall in rows like this:

I used removable tape so the questions would be easy to rip off, but unfortunately, it wasn't exactly the best cardstock-holder-upper. I wound up taping and retaping the questions up. Anyway, eventually, with enough layers of tape, they all stayed. Then I poured chips and salsa for all the kiddos (didn't even sneak any for myself!) and we were set to go. Bring on the kids...

Or not. I got one...waited...and then eventually got one more. Two kids were enough to run the program but not really enough to make it the super, action-packed, and competitive game that I'd envisioned. Also unfortunately, the kids were 2-years apart, which, apparently is HUGE in the world of trivial facts. So as the older child began to, more or less, "sweep the floor" with the younger one, I favored the younger to try to level the playing field a bit. Luckily, they were both cool and good sports, which was helpful.

Then, to top it all off, neither of the kids even liked the salsa! I'd poured it all out and wasted it for nothin'! 

I'd say the running theme of this program was disappointment. It was a ton of prep work for two kids who, I don't know, I guess mildly enjoyed it. As they are both regulars, I certainly wouldn't call this either of their favorite library programs.

What worked least: I feel like nothing worked particularly great but, in my defense, that it wasn't my fault. Maybe this would be better run as a mid-summer program in the middle of the day, but it certainly didn't draw a crowd in on a Thursday night in June. Bummer.

What worked best: The actual format of this was perfect. Smartly (if I do say so myself), I saved all the printed questions so that if I do ever decided to re-run this program (in the middle of the day in the summer), I'll have the hard work done. Plus, even if I get the same disappointing turnout next time, it'll be a lot less time invested the second time around.

They can't all be the best, right? Oh well.