Penguins and Process Art

Penguin storytime! I love penguins, who doesn't?

The kids really seemed to enjoy the farting penguin. . .

I rarely do cute product oriented art with preschoolers, but I know that parents value cute art projects to stick on their refrigerators, so I came up with this project that I think everyone can enjoy! 

I cut out the black part of the penguin and taped it to black paper and let the kids paint their papers with feathers and white paint. When the paper was peeled off, the kids were left with a penguin. They had a lot of fun with this one, because they got to cover the entire paper if they wanted. Of course some had a hard time with that (think color in the lines), but the end result was a cute project the parents could enjoy as well. This is also a great art lesson about negative space, so parents can feel good about that as well if you even bring it up.

Painting with Feathers

End "cute" project.

We played March of the Penguins between books; as I waddled with the kids, we sang this penguin call and response chant (I found it helpful that parents stay at storytime and were familiar with a call and response chant). We sang it through twice.

Penguin Chant

I'm a penguin black and white

I can't fly but that's all right.

I've got feathers that's not fur.

I lay eggs like other birds.

"Now we are going to do some counting" (in time with marching)

CHORUS

Penguins, 1, 2 (make dramatic finger counting gestures)

Penguins, 3, 4

Penguins, 5, 6, 7, 8

Penguins, they're great!

I swim real fast to get my meals.

I watch out for leopard seals.

I'm from the south as you may know

Now it's time for me to go.

CHORUS

 

Kryptonite Krispies in a Cup

I got the idea for the Kryptonite Krispies here.

I saw the picture and knew it would be an easy snack to add to our school age crafting program (I always try to add an edible crafty snack).

What you need:

• One large styrofoam cup per kid (a bowl might work better, our cups tipped over sometimes)
• 4 big marshmallows
• 1/4 tbsp butter
• 2/3 C of Rice Krispies (or the generic kind is definitely cheaper, one box was enough for about 20 kids)
• Green & Yellow Food coloring, 1-2 drops per cup

I had the kids put the marshmallows in the cup, a volunteer portioned out the butter for them and they added that to the cup as well. Microwave for about 12-18 seconds depending on how fast your microwave melts stuff. The volunteer handing out the butter also supervised the food coloring drops when the kids added them. Stir with a fork, and eat with same fork. Super easy, super quick. I'm sure you could modify with Fruity Pebbles or other such cereal. I can't wait to modify this and use it again.

SRP Sweetness

I used the fabulous library hero signs created on the Hafuboti blog to make
Mini Candy Bar Wrappers. 

 

If you want to print them for yourself, you will have to download them as a PDF for it to print correctly, I'm not sure what's up with that. But these are going to make SWEET prizes at our SRP Kick Off Carnival!

Also, if you want some Super Awesome Capes to jazz up your suckers, check out this Blog.

Let the Summer Begin!

Yellow've These Books

"Why do you like colors so much?" asks my daily favorite 10 year old library guest. To which I say, "Who doesn't???"

I loved the green Ispy last month so much that I turned it into a yellow display. I love yellow. Sunshine yellow.

It's Not Easy

It's not easy being green, or a library director! I've been avoiding posting for several reasons. One I've been a slacker and haven't posted much at all lately, I have guilt over this. Why? I have no idea. Two I feel like a whiner for even complaining a little about my new job title. A year ago this month, I added Library Director to my job duties and kept the ones I already had. Needless to say, there was a long, long, long period of teaching an old dog new tricks and I'm still learning everyday. I also had to learn to balance my two duties. One of the things I have lost is time. Time to take pictures of all the fun stuff I do, time to stop and write up a reflection (which NEEDS to be done for the next time I run a similar program). So there it is, my explanation of why this blog sucks now.

I lost my partner in crime, my old boss/director. We used to have so much fun putting displays together. We were great at bouncing ideas off each other and a great creative team ( I MISS YOU KIM!!!!). I was thinking about her and missed doing fun displays, so I took some time to put this display together. I found the idea for this display on Pinterest. I started out making an ispy poster, adding little pictures around the main poster. When I put the poster up and all of the books, I was at a loss for what to put on the top... I found the grinch, then I made him a green cage out of building straws, and set him on the top. He was lonely, so I started to round up anything green we had in the storytime closet and made up a small ISpy poster for the sides of the display.