Monthly Archives: August 2013

How Does Your Garden Grow?

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It’s a garden…

garden down…that grows before your very eyes!

garden upPssst…the secret is the little cardboard tabs on the side.

We read The Curious Garden by Peter Brown (Little, Brown, 2009). While taking a walk in a dreary city without any trees or greenery, little Liam discovers a neglected patch of wildflowers and plants. He decides to help. As the garden flourishes, it gets curious and begins to spread over the entire city, slowly changing the dull landscape into a fantastic, colorful masterpiece (and the citizens of the city into eager, joyful gardeners).

You’ll need:

  • 1 box (mine was 9” x 4 ½” X 4 ½” but a large tissue box works too!)
  • 1 piece of tagboard
  • 4 large large plastic buttons, or anything that has a little weight to it (pennies, bottle caps, etc.)
  • Hot glue
  • Construction paper, pipe cleaners, tissue paper & markers for decorating
  • Tape and scissors for construction
  • 1 white paper cup
  • 1 strip of poster board (approximately 1″ x 5″)
  • 1/2 of a bubble tea straw (approximately 4″ segment)
  • Blue cellophane
  • 1/2 sheet of dot stickers (optional)
  • A “Be Curious” banner template printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper

Cut the top (or lid) off the box. Save for later. Next, hot glue the four buttons to the (outside) bottom of the box, like little feet:

buttons on bottomThese buttons will keep the box grounded when you’re pulling on the tabs to make the garden “grow.”

Now it’s time to construct the fake floor of the box. Since I used a box with a lid, I simply re-used the lid. You can also use tagboard. Cut the floor to fit the (inside) bottom of your box. Make sure the floor is smaller than the inside of the box, so it slides up and down smoothly.

Now cut 2 strips of tagboard to make the tabs that will raise and lower the floor. The size of the strips depends on your box, but make sure they are at least 2″ taller than the top of your box so kids can grab them easily. Staple the tabs on the short ends of the floor, then bend upward.

fake floorAfter some trial and error, we determined that cutting the corners off the floor allows it to slide up and down more easily.

Now it’s time to decorate! We provided green construction paper in various shapes and sizes, a rainbow assortment of tissue paper, three different types of green pipe cleaners…and let everyone go wild. But remind the kids that they can only decorate the fake floor of the box. If they tape stuff around the top or inside of the box, the floor won’t slide!

Since some kids (and parents) are somewhat daunted by tissue paper flowers, I created a really easy muffin cup flower. Punch a pipe cleaner through a muffin cup. To keep the muffin cup in place, put kinks in the pipe cleaner on both sides:

muffin cup flower stepsVariation: Punch the pipe cleaner through TWO muffin cups, and fringe one!

tissue paper variationOn to the watering can! Use markers to decorate the white poster board handle of the watering can and tape it to the white paper cup.

For the spout, cut four tabs on one end of your bubble tea straw segment. Spread the tabs out, and tape to the cup. When taping, you’ll need to adjust the tabs to get the straw to point upwards like a spout.

watering can spoutFinish the watering can by peppering it with dot stickers! For extra fun, I put squares of blue cellophane in a plastic tub “pond” and kids strolled over to “fill up” their watering cans. The final touch on the project was a “Be Curious” banner taped to the front of the box!

To “grow” your garden, drop the fake floor in the box with the tabs sticking upwards, sprinkle everything with “water” from your watering can, and then pull slooowly on the tabs to make your garden emerge!

Avast!

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pom-pom cannonIf you do programs with kids, inevitably, you’re going to do something with pirates. Now, you can come well-armed with this amazing pom-pom cannon!

I created this project for a large-scale Treasure Island event, so it’s designed to be quick to make, cheap to produce, and fun to play with. It was a huge hit. The brave crew at the Historical Society of Princeton helped kids make 500+ cannons at the event. Arrr!

You’ll need:

  • 1 paper towel tube
  • 1 piece black construction paper
  • Metallic markers for decoration
  • A cannon wheel template printed on an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of card stock
  • 2 jumbo paperclips
  • Hot glue or glue dots
  • Tape for construction
  • 1 jumbo 2″ pom-pom (any color)

Wrap the paper towel roll in black paper and tape to secure. Then use the metallic markers to decorate the cannon and the wheels. We used metallic Sharpie markers.  Silver showed up the best on the black paper.

Slide the two jumbo paperclips on one end of the tube. These are the “weights” on the base of your cannon so it won’t slump forward when sitting on a table. I found it’s best to put the clips side by side, like so:

paper clip placementNow it’s time to attach the wheels. I used hot glue for the version you see here, but we used glue dots and/or tape at the event (while I love hot glue, I’m not big on running a hot glue gun for 5 hours amongst thousands of kids).

You’ll notice that the wheels are attached almost in the center of the cannon. You’ll have to play with the placement of the wheels a little to get the cannon to tilt just right.

pom-pom cannonReady to fire? Hold the cannon aloft in one hand, push the pom-pom into the “mouth” (i.e. the non-paperclip end) of the cannon, and then blow a big puff of air into the opposite end. The “cannonball” will launch!

Now, how about some swords matey? Printable tattoos? A floating island hideout? A parrot pal to perch on your wrist? Or this lovely (and incredibly easy) ship in a bottle?

Up, Up, and Away

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balloonYes, that is a chicken in a hot air balloon! Take a ride in the skies…and maybe you’ll pick up some interesting passengers!

We read Wings: A Tale of Two Chickens by James Marshall (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003). Studious chicken Harriot must rescue her clueless friend Winnie when Winnie fails to recognize that the “kind” stranger who offers her a ride in his hot air balloon is actually a fox intent on a chicken dinner with dumplings.

The craft project involved creating a hot air balloon, making “you” the pilot, and then a flight to rescue a chicken of your very own!

You’ll need:

  • A box. I used a 4″ x 4″ x 4″ white box, but you can also use a tissue box
  • 2 paper lunch bags
  • 3 strips of white poster board (approximately 22″ x 2.5″)
  • 4 pieces of twisteez wire (or pipe cleaners)
  • 1 pipe cleaner
  • 2 toilet paper tubes
  • Markers and construction paper for decoration
  • Stapler, hole punch, and tape for construction
  • 1 long piece of brown raffia for the balloon basket (optional)
  • Red and yellow self-adhesive foam (optional)
  • 2 white feathers (optional)
  • If you want to “fly” the balloon, a long piece of yarn with paperclip hook

To get started, use the markers to decorate the strips of poster board. Staple one of the strips in a circle (about the diameter of a large oatmeal container). The remaining two strips become your balloon’s “framework” and get attached to the circle like so:

frame sequentialYou’ll notice the two striped framework strips are attached closer to the top the polka dot circle. This will give your balloon a better shape later.

Wait until the two strips are fully attached to the circle BEFORE you staple them where they intersect at the top of the balloon. Otherwise, you might get a lopsided framework.

Once the framework is secure, use your hand to squish it down. Do this twice. This will mold the framework into the desirable balloon shape.

squishNow for the balloon part! Slide the paper lunch bag onto your hand, and stick it up through the circle on one side. Staple the outer edge of the bag to the circle (leave the inner edge of the bag alone). Repeat with the second bag on the opposite side. Fluff them up if you’d like to achieve full balloon-ly-ness.

balloon sequentialFinally, use the hole punch to make 4 holes around the poster board circle. This is where your basket will attach.

Whew! That’s the hard part, done. On to the basket! Take your box and, if necessary, trim off the lid and side tabs (if it’s a tissue box, cut the opening out and perhaps shorten the box a little). Use the hole punch to make 4 holes around the box. If you’d like, you can wind the long piece of raffia around the box to resemble wicker (or use markers to decorate it).

When the basket is done, use twisteez wires (or pipe cleaners) to attach the basket the the balloon. Another pipe cleaner loops through the top of the balloons framework, creating a ring to hang the balloon from.

ring 2Now it’s time for you! Tape construction paper around the tube for your face, shirt and pants (I used patterned paper as well). I really love using multicultural construction paper for various skin tones. Draw the face with markers.

figuresWhen I did this project for my story time, I prepped all the chickens myself. But kids can certainly create their own. I used self-adhesive foam pieces for the chicken’s beak and comb, and white feathers for the wings, but you can also use markers to draw them on. Your passengers are done!

As an additional activity, I attached a paperclip hook to a super-long piece of yarn, went up a stairwell, and the kids took turns attaching the hook to their balloon rings and watching the balloon “fly” up to “rescue” a chicken. When the balloon reached me at the top of of the stairwell, I dropped a chicken in the basket and lowered the balloon back down to them.