American Girl: Grace Thomas (November 2015)

I decided to change up my program for the month of November to incorporate a session for the girl of the year, Grace Thomas. I knew the kids would get a kick out of cooking, so I searched online for easy recipes for this specific program. Here is what we did:

No cooking program should ever be complete without a chef’s hat! I gave the kids the option of making the chef hat for themselves or their dolls. Most of the kids picked making the chef’s hat for the doll. This is where I got the instructions for our hats.

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My hat turned out ok.

After we made our hats we moved on to our apple pie crescent rolls. Everyone became super excited for our first recipe. I do recommend going heavier on the sugar and doing a test at home to figure out what works.

Our last activity was ice cream in a bag. This one was a bit trickier. I did a test run at home and everything went well. However, once at the library, the bags we were using kept leaking! I literally have no pictures from this segment because I was running around getting new bags to put the leaking bags into.

This month’s activity was super fun but exhausting.

Rhyming to Read: Soft Kitty and Dickery Dickery Dare

I’ve been failing at keeping up with my Rhyming to Read program, so there will be some backtracking. Our November Rhyming to Read focused on the Soft Kitty and Dickery Dickery Dare. I have noticed that when you go off the traditional nursery rhymes you have a harder time finding activities to with the kids. I try to make do with what I can.

I had to do Soft Kitty for our November Rhyming to Read! I got some good laughs from parents/guardians who are Big Bang Theory fans, and it was not a difficult rhyme to teach. This was my layout:

Introduction of the Rhyme:
Soft kitty,
Warm kitty,
Little ball of fur,
Happy kitty,
Sleepy kitty,
Purr, purr, purr

I sang it once through and then had everyone sing with it me. We sang it 3x through.
I then had the kids imagine they were holding a cat and sing the rhyme to their kitties.

Action Rhyme:
Can You Meow Like Me
Meow very loudly.
Meow like a giant cat.
Meow in a squeaky voice.
Meow like a scared cat.
Meow like a happy cat.
Meow like a sad cat.
Meow like an angry cat.
Meow in a whisper.

Fingerplay:
We counted each finger as a kitten and then sang this rhyme 2x through.

Five Little Kittens
Five little standing in a row,
(Hold up five fingers.)
They nod their heads to the children so.
(Bend fingers)
They run to the left; they run to the right.
(Run fingers to the left and then to the right.)
They stand up and stretch in the bright sunlight.
(Stretch fingers out tall.)
Along comes a dog who’s in for some fun.
(Hold up one finger from opposite hand.)
ME-OW! See those little kittens run!
(Let fingers run.)

We then hid our hands behind our heads, backs and tushies.

Book: Kittens Grow Up to be Cats by Cecilia Minden

Dance Song: Copycat Me by The Learning Station

Craft:

We then switched gears to Dickery Dickery Dare.

Introduction of the Rhyme: Dickery, Dickery Dare,
Dickery, Dickery Dare,
The pig flew up in the air;
The man in brown
Soon brought him down,
Dickery, dickery, dare.

We sang through it 3x through.

Book: Piggies by Audrey Wood

Action Rhyme:
Dickery, Dickery Dare,
(crouch down low and start to bounce)
The pig flew up in the air;
(jump up in the air)
The man in brown
Soon brought him down,
(start to crouch again)
Dickery, dickery, dare.

I gave the kids a pig on a stick and they were able to fly their pigs into the air. The kids loved jumping in the air with their pigs.

Song: Pig on Her Head by Laurie Berkner.

American Girl: Josefina Montoya (October 2015)

I resumed my American Girl series after our summer reading program and boy, was I excited for what I planned for October. Día de los Muertos! My brain exploded with ideas. I knew Josefina would perfect for this with her storyline.

I started off with my traditional powerpoint. I briefly touched on Josefina losing her mother and how she most likely celebrated Día de los Muertos. I also discussed the customs and traditions celebrated today.

Our first craft was to make a calaveras mask for the participants and their dolls. I found this template. I printed off both the flower and heart mask and downsized the original mask to fit the dolls. I put out markers, sequins, and glue for decoration tools. I saw some pretty cool masks.

Our second craft was nesting dolls. I wanted a craft that would be slightly more modern. I also liked that it correlated with the decorating of the graves on Día de los Muertos.

To add an extra bit of flair to the program, I also incorporated face painting. I choose a simple design and had my two helpers keep to this one choice. At first no one was getting up to get their faces painted, but soon there was a line with ready participants. Here is an image of my helper’s makeup.

I wrapped up the event with some hot chocolate. My research showed that hot chocolate or champurrado are popular drinks during this holiday.

This might have be my favorite session yet. The girls had a blast and it went very smoothly.

Sensory Playtime: October 2015

My library has been granted the great opportunity to offer our community a sensory playtime. A local private school generously donated money to help us get started and we are running with this chance. Since we did not know what to expect, we aimed for different stations that could entertain a small or large crowd.

Station 1: Mirrors for Sight

I placed out different mirrors for the kids to dress-up and see themselves. This was a double whammy, as it promoted sight and imagination. Not to leave the super young out, I had two large sheets with baby mirrors.

Station 2: Pots and Pans for Sound

What child doesn’t like making sweet music with their parents’ pots and pans? I had different shapes and styles of pots. I also provided different type of utensils for the children to bang on the pots and pans.

Station 3: Digging for Treasure (Touch)

Kids LOVE sand and what better sensory activity than for little hands to dig into sand for buried treasure. We had all sorts of items buried. There were toys, shells, and little gadgets. Sand digging is also great for developing muscles in the hands.

Station 4: Spaghetti for Touch/Taste

I made three different batches of spaghetti. One batch had absolutely nothing on it. The second batch had olive oil on it, and the last batch had orange extract with olive oil. This offered the kiddos the opportunity to feel the difference between the spaghetti. My first participants also got the chance to taste it before everyone’s hand were in it.

Review
This was a smashing success! 113 people showed up!!! Since we went larger with our stations, parents/guardians could spend as little or as much time at each station. Some people went methodically and were done in 30 minutes while others jumped around. It was very common to see one child playing in the sand and the next minute putting a tiara on in front of the mirror.

The overall favorite was spaghetti! I had one child who did not want to share the spaghetti and would continuously hug it to her chest. Another child actually rolled in it! His mom just stripped him down and put new clothes on him right before they left.

Check out some images from the event:

Some Recommendations

Buys LOTS of tarps. This can help keep the mess to minimum.
Only have one messy item. I had two stations and they were a MESS after everyone left.
If you do food, put out small quantities for parents/guardians to take for their child. My spaghetti was only good for one tasting session before it became a germ fest of little hands.

American Girl: Julie Albright (April 2015)

Alright, work has been extremely busy with summer reading program, and I have fallen off the wagon with updating. I’m going to try and catch up by doing at least a post week (hopefully two).

My final American Girl program was focused on Julie Albright. I figured we could end the spring series with some disco dancing, pet rocks, and tie-dying.

I did my traditional opening with a brief powerpoint about the Julie’s era, the 1970s. After introducing Julie, I then talked about how popular pet rocks where during this time. I gave a brief history about how pet rocks got started. I then let the kids and their adults loose to paint their own pet rocks.

After our pet rock project, we moved on to tie-dying (how could we not). There were quite a few chuckles from the older crowd. I would have loved to actually tie-dye shirts, but coffee filters are just as fun. I had the crowd decorate their coffee filters (each person got three) and then my helpers walked around and spritzed each filter with water. We saw some really groovy combinations.

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We finally ended with a mini party. I served Doritos and root beer to the kids. I always knew that Doritos was popular, but who knew how crazy the kids would go for their own batch. I actually had to give five girls Oreos because I ran out of Doritos. Next time I will buy three party bags instead of just two! I then threw some ABBA on and let them have their own dancing party.

Candy Explosion!!!!

Our theme for Spring Break this year was candy! We had a performer who did a Willy Wonka performance, we showed the original Willy Wonka movie, and a program focused completely on candy. This was my special program. It was entitled, “Candy Explosion” Eat candy, make things with candy, and decorate with candy! It will be a Candy Explosion!”

My coworker and I try to actively avoid registration programs, but I knew this program could easily get out of hand and limited my registration to only 25 kids. All my spots were gone by February! I also had a lengthy waiting list right before the program.

I outlined program as:

Experiments
Crafts
Candy

EXPERIMENTS
1. The kids and I did several experiments. Our first experiment was to chew spearmint gum for at least two minutes. We then ate a piece of orange. We talked about why spearmint affects our taste buds.

2. We placed jolly ranchers on ice cubes to see how the ice would melt:

3. We tried to make taffy boats. The kids really did not grasp the idea of how to make a boat out of taffy. I had to show a few of them what I meant. Others just wanted to eat their taffy:

4. We tested colors. We dropped an orange or yellow m&m into water. The kids tried to mix the colors. We explained how the density of the colors does not allow the colors to mix.

5. Our final experiment was to place a lemon drop into some water. We talked about how the bubbling signified acid.

CRAFTS
Once we were done with the experiments we transitioned into our craft section. Our department has a TON of old candy and this was a perfect way to get rid of the candy. I set-up a little store and each child got to go shopping for their pieces. They then created their own artwork.

FOOD

I finally rewarded the kids with candy they could actually eat! I felt a little bit bad that I was returning these kids back to their guardians completely sugared up. However, the kids had a blast.

SOURCES

Candy Experiments by Loralee Leavitt
Candy Experiments 2 by Loralee Leavitt

American Girl: Kit Kittredge (March 2015)

Our March American Girl was Kit Kittredge, and I immediately wanted to focus on the Great Depression aspect of Kit’s life. I made sure to get some music for the entire program.

I once again did a Margaret Mildred Kittredge powerpoint. I gave a brief description about how the Great Depression started, how children “helped” during this time period, recycling, and past time amusements.

Our first activity was a Great Depression Store. I set-up a table with seven bowls (two of them not pictured) of broken crayons. I explained to the girls that people could not afford to buy new things during Kit’s period and had to reuse many items. If they did have money, people would have to weigh what was most essential to their families. I applied this idea to our own store. We were going to make new crayons out of old crayons.

I priced the blue, green, red, orange, and yellow bowls at one penny per crayon piece. My purple/pink and black/brown bowls were two pennies for one crayon piece. Each girl received 10 pennies and had to figure out how they wanted to spend their money. I also only allowed the girls to line up first. I explained that many parents would forgo necessities to allow their children to survive. The girls LOVED this activity.

After all the girls received their pieces, I had the parents/guardians line up. Many of these adults gave their pieces to their children in the spirit of the Great Depression.

We then had all the girls arrange their crayon pieces in a tin foil cup and placed it in our oven. There was definitely some cool color mixtures happening. My helper then placed all these tin foil cups in the freezer to speed up the process. Our final result was some neat crayons:

Our next project was kites! I explained how kites were a simple and very inexpensive amusement when no one has money. We had newspapers, straws, tape, yarn, crepe paper, and glue to create our own newspaper kites for the dolls. Some of the girls scoured for images they could incorporate in their design while others simple drew their own designs.

By the end of the program, I had girls running around with their kites. They actually do fly!

Overall, this might have been one of my favorite American Girl programs. The girls and adults seemed to really enjoy it.

American Girl: Addy Walker (February 2015)

I had a hard time picking a girl for February until one of my favorite patrons requested that I do Addy Walker for February. I knew immediately that I wanted the kids to make their own play-dough cherry pie as Addy had cherry pie for her birthday. I woke up at 6am on Saturday and made several batches of homemade play-dough. I found this super easy recipe. I do recommend that you add the salt directly to the hot water. It made the play-dough less grainy. I made several batches for the “dough” and a smaller batch for the “cherries.” Once the girls arrived for the actual program, I did my Addy Walker powerpoint. I talked briefly about what plantation Addy’s lived on (the author created Addy’s character based on the Stagville Plantation, how she picked her birthday, her chores, and where she escaped to with her mother. I then talked about how Addy had cherry pie for birthday and how she might have played with a Thaumatrope. Our first task was for the girls to make their own cherry pie out of the play-dough. I bought a several muffin tins. I specifically choose the tins that came six to one tin. I wanted a size that the girls could easily manage and that would be size appropriate for their dolls. These are super easy to cut. You just have to make sure to fold the down tin so there are no sharp edges. We lined out tins with the dough, rolled the cherries, and then made the topping. Plastic knives work great to make the strips.

Some of the girls made designs. Unfortunately, I was running around and was unable to get pictures. After our cherry pies, we went on to make our own thaumatropes. I found my instructions in Martha’s Stewart’s Favorite Crafts for Kids. I had a few examples of thaumatropes on my powerpoint. I showed two youtube videos. One of them was of vintage thaumatropes and the other was of new thaumatropes. Beware that many kids will copy the examples. However many of them of turned out great. Here is one example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKmTmGRN7EA

American Girl: Kirsten Larson (January 2015)

Kirsten Larson might be retired, but she made a reappearance as our very first American Girl for our series. To get the public excited I made a mini display at our American Girl table with Kirsten’s books.

For my actual program, I started with a powerpoint about Kirsten Larson. I kept it fairly short, as all of the kids are in school. I talked about where Kirsten was born and why her family moved. I then very briefly talked about why they moved to Minnesota and what Kirsten’s family would have sought in this new land. This included what kind of chores Kirsten was expected to do and what she might have to do for fun.

I explained that Kirsten most likely did quilting as a fun activity. I did not want to hand out needles to little kids, so I found an alternative at Playdough to Plato. Scrapbook paper! I had a volunteer die-cut a bunch of one inch squares for me. I then made a simple quilt template for the kids. I then let the kids and their adults loose.

I gave a good thirty to forty minutes for the kids to design and glue their quilt together. Once someone was done with their quilt, I came around with different colored card stock for their border. I did not do any funky colors, as I wanted the quilts to be more authentic.

There were some really cool quilts!

After we were done making our quilts. We switched gears to the chores that Kirsten would have completed. One of these was making butter! I explained that she probably churned butter, but we were making butter with our shaking skills. The kids had a BLAST with this activity.

Once we were done making butter I gave everyone bread to eat with their homemade butter. I actually some of the kids licking butter out of the jars!

This was a very successfully program. I actually had several parents/guardians ask me for the recipe to make the butter, as they wanted to do it at home!

American Girl Doll Lending Program

I am very excited to announce that it has been almost two months since my American Girl Doll program went live! This has been a dream program of mine since I started in the library world, and my current boss made it a reality when she gave me the thumbs up to purchase all the dolls. We were able to buy 7 of the 8 Beforever Historical Dolls. Addy was backordered in December and I had to use 2014’s budget to get the dolls. We made a mental note to purchase her in 2015. I was like a kid on Christmas Day when all the dolls arrived.

On December 20, 2014, at my Samantha’s Victorian Christmas Tea Party, we officially announced that all the dolls will be available for checkout. I was immediately bombarded by little girls asking when and how they could get the dolls. Unfortunately, it took me a good three weeks before they were ready.

It took me 2 1/5 full work days to get these dolls ready for circulation. I created a detailed binder with LOTS of pictures. I itemized everything that came each doll, pictures of each doll, and pictures of what came in their carrying cases. This has come in very handy.
Here is a picture of Kit with everything she comes with when she is checked out.

I made sure to include a journal with each doll. The inside of every journal includes how to take care of their dolls and the policies for taking them home.

My last step was to create a place where children and adults could find the dolls. I made this handy dandy bucket. Every doll comes with her own paddle. A patron simply takes the paddle to our circulation desk and they receive their doll.

I can officially say this service is a HUGE SUCCESS! The dolls are NEVER in and we have constant phone calls from adults inquiring if the dolls are available. I even had one woman run into the library without a coat in 17 degree weather. She saw that two dolls were available and she didn’t want to miss her chance to get one.

I do have a few quick suggestions for libraries interested in starting their own American Girl Doll Lending Program:

Ease in slowly with dolls. I felt a bit overwhelmed trying to handle and check all 7 dolls. I almost wish that I would have started with 2 and then introduced another 2 this month and so forth. However, I then wouldn’t have all my rocking stats!
Realize that dolls with curls are going to be the bane of your existence. I spend at least 30 minutes to an hour redoing Caroline’s curls.
Really examine the dolls. I thought that a patron had cut one of the doll’s hair until we realized that the shorter hair (it was in between the longer strands) was too perfectly cut to be done by a child. My assistant director called her sister-in-law who confirmed that her doll also had the same thing.

Feel free to contact me if you would like more information!