Flowers for Friends

Posted on November 10, 2015 by Dana Sheridan

Make three cheerful flower pots, then share one with a friend! Not only was this a fun creative activity, it was a lovely lesson on the joy of giving and receiving. Not into flowers? No problem. We also offered a strawberry plant and a cactus!

We read Lola Plants a Garden, written by Anna McQuinn, and illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw (Charlesbridge, 2014). Lola loves garden poems, especially Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. So Lola and her Mommy read books about gardens, buy seeds, and plant them. Even though it’s a bit of a wait for the first green shoots to appear, the flowers eventually grow and bloom in the warm sun. Lola invites her friends over to enjoy her garden and try some crunchy peas and plump strawberries Mommy grew. For Lola, one of the best things about growing a garden is sharing it with others.

You’ll need:

3 paper cups (plastic works too – we offered both!)
A selection of patterned tape
1 garden template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ white card stock
Green pipe cleaners & sparkle stems
Green craft ties
Green construction paper
Green masking tape
A selection of crepe paper streamers
A selection of tissue paper
1 toilet paper tube (if you’re making a cactus)
1 gift label template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ white card stock
1 wooden coffee stirrer
1 corrugated cardboard base (approximately 4.5″ x 14″)
1 plastic lizard (optional)
Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
Markers for decorating
Hot glue

Here’s what a finished project looks like: 3 flower pots (one of which was given to you by someone else), 2 butterflies, and 1 plastic lizard, all hot glued to a corrugated cardboard base.

Before you start the project, it’s important to remind the kids that one of their flower pots will be given away as a gift. For some kids, it’s not easy to give away something they just made! But with plenty of warning, they can get used to the idea while they are working on the project. That said, I made the gift-giving portion of the program completely optional (and one kid did decide to keep all three of her pots).

On to the project! We offered a selection of paper or plastic cups as “flower pots” (this is a great time to dig around in the cabinets of ye olde staff lounge). Select 3 cups and decorate them with patterned tape (and/or markers). Color and cut the desired flora from the garden template, attach them to pipe cleaners (and/or sparkle stems), and tape the stems inside the cup.

To make a sunflower, use a large (18oz) plastic cup. They’re about 5″ tall – anything shorter is going to tip over. Roll a 4.5″ x 9″ piece of green construction paper into a tube. This is your sunflower’s “stalk.” Tape the stalk to the back of the sunflower head, then hot glue the stalk inside the cup. Tuck some green tissue paper around the stalk and tape some big green leaves to it.

And speaking of leaves, we prepped a variety of leaves, shoots, and vines for kids to use, as well as green pipe cleaner, sparkle stem, and craft tie pieces.

We also provided crepe paper streamers and tissue paper for artists who wanted to craft flowers from scratch:

To make the lovely blue flowers in the photo below, pinch one end of a 40″ – 42″ crepe paper streamer together, then wrap the “pinch point” repeatedly with the rest of the streamer. When you’re done, secure the pinch point with green masking tape, and attach it to a green pipe cleaner. I take no credit for this flower pot – it’s all Marissa and her mad crepe paper skills!

To make a strawberry plant, start with a slightly wider paper cup (the one below is actually a hot soup container). Loosely ball some green tissue paper and push it into the cup. Tape the strawberries (from the garden template) to pipe cleaner pieces, then tape the pipe cleaners into the cup. Glue a spread of green leaves to the top of the tissue ball, and add white blooms on top.

Moving along to an entirely different climate, Marissa came up with this awesome cactus. It’s a toilet paper tube covered in green tissue paper and dropped into a cup (depending on the height of your cup, you might need to bolster the cactus up a bit with more tissue paper). Use little dabs of glue to attach yellow tissue scrap “spines” to the cactus.

You’ll notice that many of the above flower pots have butterflies on them. The butterflies are on the garden template. Color them in, fold the wings up gently alongside the body, and hot glue them to the pots (or directly onto the flowers).

When all the flower pots were finished, I handed each kid a gift tag. The tags were colored, signed, attached to a wooden coffee stirrer, and tucked into the gift pots. Then the gift pots were gathered on a table. One by one, I called the kids forward and gave them a pot (make sure you have one extra pot in the pile so the last kid in line gets a choice). I got one too! Check out my beautiful gift from Gabrielle!

When the gift-giving concluded, we hot glued the 3 pots to a corrugated cardboard base. I hot glued a little plastic lizard on there as well.

And there you have it. A little creativity and sharing on display!

The BiblioFiles Presents: S.E. Hinton

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Dana Sheridan

Author photo by David Erdek

Just posted! A webcast with S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders, That Was Then, This is Now, Rumblefish, Tex, and Taming the Star Runner.

In 1967, a new voice entered the world of children’s publishing. It was the tough, unfiltered, empathetic, and frank voice of Ponyboy Curtis, the main character in Hinton’s ground-breaking and genre-creating novel, The Outsiders. Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy lives with his big brothers, Sodapop and Darry. They are orphans, and Darry has set aside his dreams of college in order to shoulder the responsibilities of providing for his younger brothers. Ponyboy, his brothers, and his friends are greasers. They grow their hair long, wear leather jackets, drive old souped-up cars, and rove in gangs. They also clash – often very violently – with the Socs, the upper-class teens from the West-side who seem to have it all. When the violence results in a death, Ponyboy and his friend, Johnny, must go on the run or face the judgement of a system that is already stacked against them.

Hinton’s characters navigate confusing, turbulent, bleak, intense, and often unfair worlds that were previously unheard of in children’s literature. The raw truths of Hinton’s novels ushered in a new category of children’s literature – Young Adult fiction. In 1988, she was the recipient of the American Library Association’s first annual Margaret A. Edwards Award, an award that honors authors whose books “have been accepted by young adults as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives.”

It’s important to add that while gritty, Hinton’s books also carry with them messages of understanding, acceptance, choice, family, forgiveness, strength, and hope. They are both heartbreaking and illuminating, desolate and thought-provoking, frightening and beautiful.

In addition to her YA books, Hinton also has a chapter book for younger readers called The Puppy Sister, and a picture book called Big David, Little David.

Follow this link to the BiblioFiles interview

Pigs on Parade

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Dana Sheridan

Cue the marching music and rev up the float…it’s a pig parade! If, of course, the pigs cooperate. They might not, you know.

We read A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea, written by Michael Ian Black, and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Simon & Schuster, 2010). A pig parade might sound like fun, but this book will convince you otherwise. Pigs refuse to wear majorette uniforms, don’t care about floats (unless it’s a root beer float), prefer sad country music ballads to marching music, and can’t manage giant parade balloons. So let’s face it. A pig parade is a terrible idea. But a panda bear parade…well…! This book is hilarious and fun read-aloud. Hawkes’ illustrations are colorful and funny, detailing exactly what happens when a pig parade goes awry.

For the project, we made mini parade floats, adorned them with 3 pigs, and started marching to the beat of a kazoo. And wouldn’t you know it, those pigs cooperated very nicely. No problem with this pig parade!

You’ll need:

2 bamboo skewers
2 drinking straws
4 wheels (or wooden spools)
2 small, flat boxes (mine were 1″ x 2.75″ x 2.75″ tape roll boxes)
1 corrugated cardboard base (mine was a 9.75″ x 13.75″ cake pad)
1 small craft stick
A piece of string or yarn (mine was 27″ long)
1 large tissue box
Parade float decorating supplies (more on those later!)
3 toilet paper tubes
Pink construction paper
1 kazoo (optional)
Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
Markers for decorating
Hot glue

We’ll begin with the parade float’s wheels! We used plastic wheels from Kelvin Educational. But wooden spools also work. Cut 2 bamboo skewers to approximately 6″ (they might need an inch or two longer if you use wooden spools). Next, cut 2 drinking straws a few inches shorter than the skewers (my straws were 4″). Thread the skewers into the drinking straws, and slide wheels on the ends of the skewers.

As you can see in the above image, the skewer is the axle, and the straw is what allows the axle to turn freely (you might need to wrap the ends of the skewers with masking tape to keep the wheels/spools from sliding off). Tape each drinking straw to a small, flat box. I found that leftover tape roll boxes were the perfect size. Hot glue the tape boxes to the bottom of a corrugated cardboard base.

Knot a piece of string around a small craft stick, and tape the stick to one end of the base. This is the pull string for your float.

Flip the base over, you’re ready to decorate! To get the juices flowing, we suggested a number of parade float “themes,” such as:

When Pigs Fly
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
I Loves You, Porky
Pigs in Space
The 3 Little Pigs
Green Eggs and Ham
Little Piggies Go To Market
Piggie Tales
Some Pig
Bad Piggies (from Angry Birds)
Mad Swine-tists
It’s Hammer Time!

It was easier for kids to decorate the tissue box and base separately. But before we embarked on decorating, I had them trace the outline of the tissue box onto the base. Then I asked them to keep the area inside the outline free of art supplies. Otherwise, they might not be able to hot glue the box to the base at the end of the project.

Decorating supplies included construction paper, crepe paper streamers, large gemstones, pipe cleaners, sparkle stems, pom-poms, embossed foil paper, patterned tape, mesh tubing, and craft ties. Flags were created by pushing a short piece of balloon stick into a wooden bead, and then hot gluing the bead to the base. I also had a few small boxes available in case someone wanted to add yet another level to their float. And don’t forget a fringe of construction paper around the bottom!

Now for your piggy passengers! Wrap 3 toilet paper tubes with pink construction paper, and use some scraps to make ears and arms. I offered eye stickers, and pink dot sticker noses, but if you don’t have any handy, just use markers.

You can also use the decorating supplies to fancy up your pigs. Such as these “Rock n’ Roll” pigs. Love how the artist stuck jumbo pom-poms in the top to create hair!

When the floats were finished, I handed everyone a kazoo and we marched around the gallery. 18 kazoos at once was…pretty interesting. I bought the kazoos from the party supply section at Target. Buy extra, because some didn’t work!

And speaking of music and marching, major props to Marissa for crafting the pig band that started off the post. You can really appreciate the detail in this shot:

Seriously amazing stuff Marissa!

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Author Archives: Dana Sheridan

The BiblioFiles Presents: S.E. Hinton

Pigs on Parade