Outreach Week: Frogs

5-15-13: 4K Class at the Learning Curve

• This is my last visit before the summer and happily they are doing frogs next week and I have a great frog storytime! We talked a little about going to summer school and kindergarten and where I'll see them next year, then segued into storytime via my green shoes (they're a prop!). We read Wide-Mouthed Frog, Frog Song, Jump! (I got the kids to jump while I sat and read the story which was really good), Albert the Alligator and Red-Eyed Tree Frog. I think I might have read Frog and Fly but I don't think I did Biggest thing in the world. Can't really remember at this point. I had to be back asap to go on the desk.

5-16-13: 4K Classes at the Learning Curve

• First class we read Wide-Mouthed Frog, then one of the kids said he wanted to be an alligator, so that segued nicely into Albert the Alligator. Then we read Frog Song and we did Jump! although I didn't get them into the right formation before we started so it didn't work out quite as well as before. We also read Ribbit! and No Bath! No Cake! which I told them I was testing on them. They kind of got it and they said they liked it, but I think they mainly liked yelling "they're naked!" when the pirates were down to undies for their bath. We did Biggest thing in the world but I didn't feel that it went as smoothly as I could have hoped and I read Frog and Fly
• Second class was a hoot. You never know with this group...First we read Wide-Mouthed Frog, then we did Jump! and it worked perfectly. I told them our next story was going to be about animal that said "ribbit" and they all yelled frog, then I whipped out Ribbit and one little girl looks at me and says "awkward!" so they all said "awkward!" throughout the rest of the story. I also read No Bath! No Cake!, Red-Eyed Tree Frog and Frog and Fly and we did Albert the Alligator (they wanted several encores) and Biggest thing in the world which went very well. We talked about where they were going to school (one boy informed me that when he went to kindergarten he was going to grow  mustache) and after hugs and high-fives all around said goodbye.

I didn't visit Tibbets this week - they have some kind of music rehearsals. That was fine by me, since I am busy and I'll be seeing all the classes in a few weeks anyways. I will be visiting all three kindergarten classes there next year. 

Books

• Jump! by Scott Fischer
• Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner (pop-up)
• Frog song by Brenda Guiberson
• Frog and Fly by Jeff Mack
• Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley
• Ribbit! by Rodrigo Folgueira
• No Bath! No Cake! by Matthias Weinert

Other

• Biggest thing in the world
• Albert the Alligator

Muffins with Mom

• 5-11-13: I saw this program at Hi Miss Julie and thought it sounded like a nice, simple thing to end the spring programming session on. About 25 people came at 10ish when we opened and 5-10 more people drifted in.That's pretty acceptable attendance for a Saturday program, especially at this time of year. [update - more people showed up around 12:30, so we had about 40 in all]

I set up our storyroom with muffins and other snacks. I also had card supplies. People came, ate muffins and made cards. Super simple!

Supplies:

• Muffins (director made blueberry, reference assistant made pumpkin/chocolate chip, Pattie made blueberry)
• Food leftover from Eric Carle (mini cupcakes, grapes)
• Plates, napkins
• Scrapbooking paper, construction paper
• Scissors, glue, glitter, crayons, markers

This is how I set the room up - I didn't take any other pictures. Small tables for the little kids, big tables for the big kids.

We Explore Eric Carle

• 5-10-13: I have been getting very small groups for the non-performer We Explores, but this was a very nice size - 20 people, which means about 14 kids. I think this is a perfectly reasonable size for our population and for the type of program this is. Everyone LOVED it and I think this was my most successful non-performer We Explore yet.

I did this program a little differently than my other programs, because I wanted a two-part craft. First, we all painted designs on our paper and I reminded the kids not to put the paint on really thickly. Then we blotted them with paper towels and left them to dry. This was especially nice because people kind of drifted in late. This took about 15 minutes.

Then it was storytime! We all drifted to the carpet and I did our special Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet program. The caterpillar fits all the way on your arm, almost to the elbow, and there's a set of the different food on posterboard with a hole through them. There's also a corduroy sack for the caterpillar to go into and if you pull him out right the butterfly on the inside pops out. The kids love holding up the posters for him to eat through!

Then the moms went and got the snack I had laid out on the table (Teddy grahams and grapes in cups, mini cupcakes, and napkins) and I read several more books while they ate. We read The Very Busy Spider, 1,2,3 to the zoo and finished up with The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse and talked a little about painting and colors. By now it was about 10:35. While we read the last story, a couple of the moms hopped up and moved the paint off the tables.

Then we took our (mostly) dry paintings, cut them up and made collages!

I had a lot of Eric Carle books on display and it was a relaxed, fun program. I had thought about doing a more involved program, but this was really nice and simple and everyone loved it!

Supplies

• paint, paper, brushes, water cups, paper towels, aprons
• food (I baked the cupcakes myself), grapes, Teddy Grahams, dixie cups, napkins
• scissors, glue, paper

The pictures are just from the last part - it's hard to take pictures whilst doing a storytime!

 

Messy Art Club: Masks

• 5-9-13: I don't think I've ever done a mask-themed Messy Art before, although I often use masks in programs. We have a custom die cut that makes a large butterfly mask and I use it a LOT.

Project: Masks

How it works: Kids decorate die-cut masks or make their own from paper plates. We don't tie on masks - too many kids get freaked out and it never works right anyways - so I always have tongue depressors to tape on so they can hold them up to their faces.

Supplies

• Die cut masks
• Paper plates
• Tongue depressors and popsicle sticks
• Glitter, feathers, jewels, stickers, markers, crayons, yarn, pom poms, buttons
• Glue, glue dots, scissors, tape, hole punches

 

Middle School Madness

• 5-8-13: Last meeting of the school year. I am planning to continue this program next school year, although at the moment I don't feel like doing any more programs ever again...only 5 middle schoolers came, so it doesn't look like May is a good time for this program. I let in a bunch of high schoolers and promptly regretted it when they all decided to make "legalize marijuana" t-shirts. I probably could have handled it better, but I was too tired for an argument and I just told them if their parents or the school gets them in trouble, they are on their own. They told me their parents would think it was funny and they weren't going to wear them to school. Whatever. Note to self: Do not let high schoolers come to this program, especially this group who are very much in the "we are shocking and On The Edge" phase.

The Challenge

• This was going to be our Maker kit brushbots, but I realized too late they needed tools we didn't have. I did have the spinbot available, but they weren't interested. They definitely liked the idea of the brushbots, but we'll have to do them next year.

DIY Project

• T-shirts - I basically wanted to use up the leftover shirts and paint and markers from the spring break t-shirt party. The middle schoolers behaved perfectly nicely and made fun shirts. Not so the high schoolers (see above).

Snacks

• I bought 6 cheap party pizzas and baked them in the community room oven (note to self - there is no good knife in the kitchen! I will need to bring one next time) If I had had a normal-sized group, we would have needed more pizza.
• Leftover marshmallows and pretzels.

Wii and New Books

• The middle schoolers played some Just Dance Summer and they liked the retro Kirby Collection, but there weren't really enough kids there for it to get going.
• Nobody looked much at the books.

Supplies

• I bought the pizza and one pack of 5 t-shirts but everything else I already had. I bought the Maker kits last January.

I didn't take any pictures. I just wanted to go home and sleep.