Monthly Archives: December 2015

Ever-Ready

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ever readyFrom sandwiches to personal flotation devices, we’re prepared for whatever picnicking perils come our way. We made a delicious paper picnic lunch for two, and then tested our emergency preparedness with a problem-solving card game. Bust out the marshmallows and the umbrella. Nothing’s going to get in the way of THIS picnic!

We read Ready for Anything! by Keiko Kasza (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009). Duck wants to go on a picnic, but Racoon is feeling a bit paranoid. What if they get attacked by killer bees? Or fall in a river? What if a terrible storm blows in, they take shelter in a cave, and find a dragon inside?!? Duck counters his friend’s dire predictions with happier ones. What if it’s butterflies instead of bees? What if the river is cool and refreshing? What if they roast marshmallows with the dragon in the cave? Finally, Raccoon agrees to go, but he fortifies himself with all sorts of emergency equipment. At the picnic site, Duck realizes that he forgot the picnic basket. Uh on! A true emergency! Luckily, Raccoon is ready for anything. He’s brought a delicious back-up lunch.

You’ll need:

picnic basket with lunchFirst, the picnic lunch! If your box has a lid, cut the lid and tabs off (if you’re using a tissue box, just cut the entire top off). Decorate the box with patterned tape and color masking tape (or just markers).

To create movable picnic basket handles, punch 2 matching sets of holes in both sides of the box. Next, punch a hole at both ends of your tagboard strips. Curve the strips over the box, line the holes up, and use brass fasteners to attach the handles.

finished picnic basketIf you don’t want moveable handles, simply staple a tagboard strip to the center of the box.

Now for the food! Use construction paper to make two sets of the following picnic items: 2 slices of bread, 1 piece of lettuce, 1 tomato slice, 1 piece of cheese, 1 banana, and 1 cookie circle. Use markers to decorate the banana and cookie. Here’s what our pieces looked like (carefully arranged in what I’ve dubbed the “happy picnic food face”).

happy picnic food faceYou can simply glue the layers of the sandwich together. Or, if you want to add a bit of bulk to it, use little squares of double-sided foam mounting tape between the fillings. Here’s a shot of a square of tape connecting the bread and cheese:

taped sandwichTo make beverages, color the juice label template, then wrap each label around a toilet paper tube. Cut a drinking straw in half, and tape each piece inside a tube.

juice bottlesTuck your lunch in the basket (and don’t forget the napkins!). Your final step is to color the picnic emergency equipment cards from the template. You’ll notice there’s a blank card on the template. That’s just in case you’d like to add another piece of equipment. Like a big bar of chocolate. I’ve definitely had chocolate emergencies.

emergency equipment cardsAfter giving the kids a few minutes to play with their new picnic sets (and there was quite a lot of picnicking going on) I asked them to gather in the story time area. Then, loudly and with lots of drama, I read each scenario from the picnic emergency scenario sheet. The kids had to listen carefully and select the equipment card they thought would solve the problem best.

gameI kept the scenarios very simple, but feel free to create more complicated ones. Or write some that require a double card solution!

Let it Go

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let it go 1Does your Snow Queen need some silvery magic? Try these super simple, super inexpensive, but super fun metallic dance streamers! We took them out on our gallery floor to see how they’d go over. Three little girls immediately asked for a set. I’ll admit, I played with them too. It’s impossible not to twirl them and feel just a little bit magical.

You’ll need:

  • 2 wooden dowels
  • 1 silver metallic tablecloth
  • Scissors
  • Silver tape

The best tablecloth to use is a super-shiny crinkly one (I bought mine at Oriental Trading Company for $3.25). Spread out the tablecloth and cut 8 ribbons from it. Here are my ribbon measurements (you can adjust yours according to the height of your child):

  • 2 ribbons measuring 2.25″ x 41″
  • 2 ribbons measuring 2.25″ x 49″
  • 2 ribbons measuring 2.25″ x 60″
  • 2 ribbons measuring 2.25″ x 66″

Bunch 4 ribbons (one of each size) together, twist tightly, and tape securely to one end of a wooden dowel. Continue wrapping the tape downward and around the dowel until it’s covered. I used silver prismatic tape from Party City (a roll costs $4.99).

prismatic tapeThe Party City tape is the same width as duct tape, which can be awkward to wrap around a thin dowel. So I cut the original tape pieces in half, creating narrower strips (since the tape has peel-off backing, cutting long strips in half is easy). Repeat the above steps with the remaining 4 ribbons and wooden dowel, and you’re done!

metallic dance streamersCue the music and…LET IT GO!

let it go 2If you’re a fan of Hans Christian Andersen’s original Snow Queen, you might want to check out this fabulous adaptation by the Princeton Youth Ballet!

A Box of Puzzles…and Ducks

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contents of boxInside this box are a number of tantalizing puzzles, mazes, optical illusions, images of unusual hotel rooms, building projects, and…ducks. Can all of these things be some how related? The answer is mostly definitely yes.

This project was part of To Be Continued, our story time program for children ages 6-8. Typically, we do the projects during the program. But unfortunately, the timing on this particular day only gave me five minutes to present the project. To further confound things, it was also the eve of a one month programming hiatus. So I needed something the kids could grab, take home, and discover for themselves. Not unlike the main character in the book!

We read Floors by Patrick Carman (Scholastic, 2011). Ten-year-old Leo Fillmore and his father are the maintenance crew at the Whippet Hotel. But the Whippet isn’t an ordinary hotel. It has a room that’s a giant pinball machine, a roller coaster elevator called the Double Helix, a roof-top duck pond, a Cake Room, a Robot Room, a Pond & Caves room, and a shark head named Daisy. The Whippet is the brainchild of Merganzer D. Whippet, inventor, engineer, architect, and eccentric. Unfortunately, Mr. Whippet has gone missing, the hotel is going haywire, and two mysterious men have been making nefarious inquiries. But things take a turn for the strange when Leo finds a mysterious purple box. Inside is a letter from a lawyer and a clue that can only be from Mr. Whippet. Now Leo, his friend Remi, a duck named Betty, and a talkative robot named Blop have just two days to solve the clues, find more puzzle boxes, explore some of the hotel’s strangest rooms, and save the Whippet.

You’ll need:

  • 1 box
  • Different color printer paper
  • Puzzle box templates (located at the bottom of this post)
  • A piece of curling ribbon
  • Scissors for construction
  • 1 rubber mini-duckie (optional)

Any old box will do, but I decided to splurge and purchase these super-sturdy papier-mâché treasure boxes from Discount School Supply (a set of 12 is $21). My idea was that once kids were done with the activities inside the box, they could decorate the outside with art supplies at home. Here’s what my boxes looked like:

exterior of boxThe tag says “Always bring a duck if you can. They are more useful than you know.” That’s a quote from the book. It’s a very valuable piece of advice given to Leo when he finds the first box. Here’s an image of the full contents of the box:

contents of boxIn the book, Leo and his friend Remi have to follow cryptic clues, solve a number of riddles, and learn that things are not always as they seem. To replicate this experience for the story time kids, I grabbed mazes, optical illusions, and riddles from the internet.

mazes, optical illusions, riddlesI also scanned some Thinklers (i.e. visual riddles) from the book Thinklers! by Kevin Brougher (Missing Piece Press, 2000).

thinklersSince Merganzer engineered the Whippet himself, I included suggestions for a couple building projects involving things like gumdrops, marshmallows, toothpicks, toilet paper tubes, and card stock.

building activitiesThe rooms at the Whippet Hotel are fantastical and amazing. So I did a Google search for unusual real-life hotel rooms. And I found them. Oh yes I did. You must check out the ICEHOTEL in Sweden. Wow.

unique hotel roomsMr. Whippet is obsessed with ducks, and Betty the duck saves the day more than once. So I rounded up some duck jokes, duck memes, and other miscellaneous duck items.

duck memes, jokesI topped everything off with a rubber mini-duck. I found these on Amazon (12 for $6.87).

ducksReady to put together a box? Here are the templates you’ll need to reproduce everything.

The box tag template for the exterior of the box (you’ll need a hole punch too).

The box contents template 1 consists of 3 pages of duck memes, building activities, optical illusions, and images of unique hotel rooms. Since the images are in color, print them on white paper (card stock works great).

The box contents template 2 consists of 4 pages of Thinklers, mazes, riddles and duck jokes. I recommend printing each page on a different color paper. Also, to economize a little, I repeated the duck jokes and riddles twice on a single page.

Have fun! And may the duck be with you, always.