Gabby’s Dollhouse: A-Meow-Zing Forts

Squishmallow Madness

Blue & Yellow – Preschool

Opening Song	Welcome by Carole Peterson
Calendar	We work on identifying Day, Date, Month, Weather, Season
ASL	We learned how to sign blue & yellow.
Rhyming Concept	I printed off two images of blue and yellow. The kids had to figure out which pictures rhymed with blue and yellow. I used glue, zoo, shoe, marshmallow, and jello.
Feelings	We identified what colors can be matched with feelings. Sad(blue)/Happy(yellow)
Book	Blue vs. Yellow by Tom Sullivan
Action Rhyme	Now I’m Up, Now I’m Down Now I’m up (stand up) Now I’m down (crouch) See me waddle all around. Put my hands behind my back…. Like a duck I’ll say “quack, quack”. Source: King County Library System Tell Me a Story
Book	Banana, Banana, Meatball by GoNoddle. Watch the actual song to incorporate movement.
Book	Banana, Banana, Meatball with action words
Art Activity	We mixed blue and yellow together to find out what color we make.
Song	Banana Dance by Dr. Jean
Cool Down Activities	We sing the alphabet. We then count up to 10 and then down from 10.

I did not create a new craft, as I’m trying to recycle old crafts.

Blue & Yellow – Toddlers

Opening Song	Hello Hello! by Super Simple Songs
Calendar	We work on identifying the month, weather, and season with a calendar.
Feelings	We talked about how blue and yellow can also show feelings. We mostly said said blue can be sad and yellow can be happy.
ASL	We learned the color blue.
Book	One Hot Chick by Hannah Eliot
Weekly Rhyme	This is Big, Big, Big This is big, big, big. This is small, small, small. This is tall, tall, tall. This is short, short, short. This is fast, fast, fast. This is slow, slow, slow. This is yes, yes, yes. This is no, no. no. Source: Mel’s Desk. We do this rhyme twice. The second time we add in sign language.
Book	Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
Activity	Where are Trucks? (Thumbkin) Where is pick-up truck? Where is pick-up truck? Here I am. Here I am. How are you today, sir? Very well, I thank you. Drive away. Drive away. Tow truck, Dump truck, Moving Truck Source: Storytime Katie I laminated the different trucks and put them on popsicle sticks.
Rhyme	I am a Little Duck I am a little duck and I go, “Quack, Quack, Quack.” (flap arms and quack or quack with your hands) And I wiggle my tail in the back, back, back. (wiggle you tail!) I swim in the water and go, “Quack, Quack, Quack.” (paddle with hands) And I wiggle my tail in the back, back, back. (wiggle you tail) Source: King County Library System
Art Activity	We mixed blue and yellow together to find out what color we would get.
Song	Shake My Sillies Out by The Wiggles
Closing Song	Skidamarink by Old Town Folk Songs

Craft: I did not choose a specific craft for this storytime. I recycled an old craft.

A Very Bluey Christmas

The Day the Crayons Went to School Display

I took inspiration from The Day the Crayons Go Back to School for our 2023 school display. I talked with our volunteer about my vision and she came up with this!

MakerSquare: Crystallizing Watercolors

Description: Create a piece of art using salt and water.
Warning: Paint may stain clothing and furniture.

Supplies:

· Watercolor Paper

· Paint Brush

· Watercolor Paint

· Tablespoon of Epsom Salt

· Teaspoon of Table Salt

· Tablespoon of Water (not provided)

· Mixing Bowl (not provided)

· Sheet Pan (not provided)

Directions:

· In a bowl, combine the water and paint with the table salt and Epsom salt mixture.

· Swirl or gentle stir the mixture until the salt is dissolved. It is okay if there are a few grains. If the salt is not dissolving, add a tiny bit more water.

· Place watercolor paper in a pan or a flat container.

· Start painting with the paint mixture.

· Create a variety of thin and heavy areas on the paper. Thinner layers will have a shimmery finish while heavier layers will have larger crystals.

· Thinner layers will crystallize in about 2 hours. Heavier layers will crystallize in 24 hours.

· Enjoy the art piece!

Source: Fun at Home With Kids

Play-Doh Reads: Llama Llama Red Pajama

Gabby’s Dollhouse: Cakey’s Bakery

Gabby’s Dollhouse: Baby Box’s Craft-A-Riffic Craft-Ganza

Set-Up/Registration	For this program, I had families register as one unit. Once I knew how many families were going to be in attendance, I created stations. Each station had one table, three chairs, and 6 clothespins. Families were expected to bring their own blankets and pillows.
Activity 1: Paper Blankets	I have done this craft in the past and it is a huge hit. I die-cut a bunch of different scrapbook paper and then created a 6 X 6 square sheet for the kids to create their own quilt. After they were done quilting, they would cut out their quilt and glue it on to a colorful piece of construction paper.
Activity 2: Pillows	I had the kids create their own no-sew fleece pillows. To be cost effective, I opted for 9X9 size squares for 43 kids. This size turned out some cute small pillows, but the adults definitely had to help younger kids out. If I had my way, I would have gone 12×12 size.
Snack	Rainbow Sherbet Punch with animal crackers. Recipe from Bitz & Giggles I really liked this recipe because it did not require a ton of extra ingredients. A library board member helped me dish out individual cups to participants. Once all the kids had their snack and drink, we allowed the adults to come up. Surprisingly a lot of the adults also enjoyed the snack.

Overview	Originally I had planned to make this program more intimate by capping it at 30 kids. However, the program filled up very quickly. We then had numerous phone calls asking if we were going to have a waitlist. With so much interest, I switched gears and changed up the program to drop-in.
Squishmallow Stones	I put this activity in our CreateSpace to help control the mess. Kids got to pick their rocks, and we used paint pens to minimize clean up.
Squishmallow Scavenger Hunt	I made a a simple scavenger hunt for the kids to find 6 pictures of Squishmallows. Once they checked in with their sheet, they received a Squishmallow sticker, free McDonald’s fry coupon, and Squishmallow Face stickers.
Squishmallow Craft	Kids had the opportunity to make their own squishmallow cam cat ears! I also had a table set up with coloring sheets and squishmallow word hunt.
Guess the # of marshmallows	We did a guessing game with marshmallows. I had a volunteer count ad and stuff a container with the marshmallows. The kids then guessed for the chance to win a giant Squishmallow!

Introduction	For our last summer reading program, we decided to do A Very Bluey Christmas. Since Australia has Christmas during their summer season and the holiday promotes togetherness, we thought it was perfect. Little did we know how popular. We clocked over 400 people for our program. We did a two hour window.
Crafts	Inside our meeting room, we had all paper and craft activities. All credit goes to my coworker for these picks. Festive Cards Letters to Verandah Santa Ornaments Puppets Christmas Crackers Tree Toppers Coloring Sheets
Scavenger Hunt	To help break up the crowd, we had a scavenger hunt in the children’s department. Once the kids returned their sheet, they received a sticker and a free McDonald’s French Fry Coupon.
Outside Activities	We are very fortunate to have a large lawn space. We ended up using a chunk of it to create an outdoor play area. This was my brain child area. I crafted a “creek” in honor the creek epsiode. We put out water tables, buckets, and a baby pool. We filled them with sand, rocks, insects, fishes, and reptiles. We did advertise that there was going to be water play and to dress for a mess. We also asked that patrons finish up all their indoor activities before making their way outside. I was supposed to man the outside, but I ended up having to help monitor Santa, so a shelver helped me out. She ended up having the hose and if kids got the okay from their adults, she would get them wet. Fear of someone drowning, I kept this primarily mud. The water in the picture got drained out before the kids arrived. I knew kids would climb into the pool. Our “creek”. Kids would move the buckets to different areas.
Character Outside Activity	We had a holiday tattoo station. Kids could either pick a holiday or summer tattoo. The line for this was crazy. I had to make a make-shift barrier towards the end because people were still getting in line after last call.
Santa	We of course needed Santa and some elves. We have a great partnership with this character company, and the owner helped us brainstorm some activities. She was able to get summer dresses for the elves and Santa arrived in his summer gear.

Opening Song	“I Like To” by Early Emily
Hand-Out Supplies	Play-Doh, Play-Doh mats, popsicle sticks, straw
Action Rhyme with Play-Doh	Pizza Man! Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man (Clap Play-Doh) Make me a pizza as fast as you can. Roll it (Roll Play-Doh) Toss it (Toss Play-Doh) Sprinkle it with cheese (Pretend Sprinkle Over Play-Doh) Put it in the oven (Mime Putting Play-Doh in Oven) And bake it fast, please! Credit: SurLaLune Storytime I adapted the movement to work with Play-Doh
Letter Recognition and Tactile Focus	I found these awesome sheets from Pre-K Printable Fun. I laminated them for future use. The kids got to pick if they wanted to work on the lowercase or uppercase letter “P”. We then moved on to the bottom half of the sheet with making pumpkins. I started them with one large pumpkin. I then had them split their pumpkin into 2, 3, and 4. Source: Pre-K Printable Fun
Shape Tactile Focus	We talked about how quilts can be made up of different shapes and sometimes they are have circles inside of quilts. I created a sheet with a bunch of different circle shapes. Kids worked on filling their circles while I read Llama, Llama Red Pajama to them.
Book	Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
Song Activity	Before I started the song, I had the kids make five balls of play-doh. I handed out 3X3in poster board and had the kids put their “monkeys” on the bed. They could make their monkeys jump but had to remove a monkey when one fell off. Song: No More Monkeys by Asheba
Open Play	After we were done with the structured storytime, I released the kids and their adults for open play. I had tables out with a ton of play-doh tools.
Goodbye	Clean Up Song by Gracie’s Corner

Introduction	We talked about Cakey and all the food we were going to make! I was inspired to create food based around the characters of Gabby’s Dollhouse. I already had all the food on the table for easier access.
Treat 1: Kitty Fairy’s Fairy Bread	This recipe worked out great for Kitty Fairy, and it was probably one of the favorites. I researched several different versions and settled on this recipe. I recommend getting thicker white bread.
Treat 2: Mercat’s Cookies	I adapted this recipe to fit our theme. Instead of seashells I gave them goldfish crackers. I made sure to get the goldfish colors packages. For the graham crackers, I crushed them before the event and had containers at each table for the kids to sprinkle their frosting.
Treat 3: Cakey’s Marshmallows	Cakey’s marshmallows was the overall favorite for both kids and adults. I had a staff member staff this station, since we were dealing with heat. I would release the tables when there was space available. We thankfully had melting pots that she would refill as it got low on chocolate. We made it more budget-friendly by having attendees only dip the top of their marshmallows and then sprinkling their marshmallows. I believe this was the recipe used for our base. However, we did not use the oil since we had the melting pots.
Craft	Our craft was a cakey headband. I made a template and had our volunteers cut out the pieces for the kids.
Dance Party	We finished up the program with a dance party to the Gabby Dollhouse Soundtrack.

LIBRIONYIAN

LiBrionyian – n. the ramblings of a librarian named Briony