Tag Archives: children

Barbarians? We Got ‘Em!

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It’s time to get loud, proud, raucous, and rowdy…the barbarians have arrived at story time!

We read Great, Now We’ve Got Barbarians! Written by Jason Carter Eaton, and illustrated by Mark Fearing (Candlewick Press, 2016). When a young man refuses to follow his mom’s orders to clean his room, he doesn’t just get pests…he gets barbarians! Soon they’re chomping cheese curls, infesting the garage, stealing pillows to make forts, and having crumb wars. Exasperated and desperate, the boy finally cleans his room. Thankfully, the barbarians skulk away. Things are peaceful again…until the boy lets the bathtub overflow one night and…oh no! PIRATES!

This story time project is a fantastic example of how we upcycle materials and reuse items from other programs. With the exception of the helmet, this entire project was sourced from previously used materials! Let’s take a look…

The barbarian costume basically consist of a helmet, tunic, belt, and sword. The helmet instructions can be found in this post. The tunics were cut from the white fabric photo backdrop we used at our thrift store costumes challenge. You can see it here, right behind Veruca Salt…

veruca-salt-costume

The brown and gold belts for the barbarian costumes were cut from yet another photo backdrop, this time from our Great Catsby event!

Two children standing in front of a decorative art deco curtain while an adult takes their photo.

The tunics were topped of with “fur” (i.e. brown felt that found its way to our library from a campus theater production). We used some metallic markers, metallic dot stickers, plastic jewels, and masking tape to fancy everything up. As you can see, we had some seriously awesome barbarian duds!

But the runaway favorite of the entire ensemble were the swords. The foam shafts are retired archival foam spine support strips from the Special Collections reading room. We pushed the foam into toilet paper tube hilts and decorated them lavishly.

Then we screamed and had sword fights for over 20 minutes. It was right before the holidays, so it was an absolutely perfect high energy, low mess story time!

Wicked Science

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Bright, swirling smoke in shades of neon pink and electric green forms bold, energetic shapes, creating a striking abstract background with vibrant colors.

Calling all citizens of Oz and abroad! You are cordially invited to enroll in Shiz University’s elite sorcery class to learn the science behind the magic. That’s right…we’re off to see the science!

The Cotsen Children’s Library, Department of Chemistry, and Science Outreach at Princeton University were delighted to present a morning of hands-on activity tables, followed by a 45-minute auditorium show with plenty of glitter and gravitas!

As Ozian’s entered the event floor, they were greeted with tables staffed by graduate and undergraduate students from Science Outreach at Princeton University (who gamely showed up dressed in pink and green!).

Kids wielded static electricity wands, learned about magnetic levitation, unveiled the Grimmerie’s invisible ink, tested Glinda’s bubble travel potion, and examined the pH levels of popular potions.

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There was also a yellow brick road magnet game table, and, just in case you missed it in the slideshow above, a truly magnificent dry ice tabletop tornado, which Katie constructed with the help of this Steve Spangler video.

After the activity tables had been thoroughly perused, Angie Miller from the Department of Chemistry invited students to attend Shiz University’s very own “Potions 101” class, which was held in the Taylor Auditorium on Princeton University campus.

Angie the Amazing lead the class through the tenets of the scientific method with emerald flames, rainbow beakers, conservation of mass, water boiling at room temperature, and more! She also defied gravity with the Meissner Effect (i.e. cooling a superconductor with liquid nitrogen to levitate a magnet). My personal favorite? Candy combustion – a dramatic demonstration of what happens when potassium chlorate meets Skittles:

Of course, it wouldn’t be magic/science without things culminating in fire and explosions, so Angie ramped things up with metal salt flames and firework balloons. Katie and I both managed to get footage of the fun:

The event was absolutely wonderful, and we would like to thank Angie Miller in the Department of Chemistry, Paryn Wallace with the Science Outreach at Princeton University, and all the graduate and undergraduate students who volunteered their time to reach out to community families! We appreciate you so much!

Science Outreach at Princeton University. Back row (from left to right): John Woo, Rishika Porandla, Anushri Mahabir, Harper Vance, Nneka Onyea, Adriana Gaitan, Zaighum Nagra, Davis Hobley. Front row (from left to right): Maya Cabrera, Kelsey Campbell, Meghana Bhupat, Anna Buretta, Adrija Kundu, Tam Nguyen

A Very Spirited Performance

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Turn down the lights and astound your audience with tales of adventures, hauntings, and astounding plot twists! Best of all, no special screen needed…it’s parchment paper from your home pantry.

We read Gilbert the Ghost by Guido Van Genechten (Clavis, 2014). Gilbert is not like the other ghosts at Ghost School. For starters, he was born blush, not ghostly white. And while other ghosts are shouting “Booooo!” Gilbert can only say “Ba…ba…bahoo!” For this, he is banished to the Abandoned Tower. But it’s not quite abandoned, and thus begins Gilbert’s wonderful friendship with Meow the cat. The roommates claim the tower for their own, and make it into the coziest little haunt you’ve ever seen. Soon, there are many visitors, but only one ghost who can say “Bahoo!”

You’ll need:

  • A rectangle of corrugated cardboard (we used a 10″ x 14″ cake pad)
  • A theater banner from the template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • Small boxes to prop the theater up
  • Parchment paper
  • Black poster board
  • 3 drinking straws
  • 2 LED votive candles
  • Scissors and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Box cutter
  • Hot glue

To create the front of your theater, cut a window into a piece of corrugated cardboard. Then use markers to decorate the cardboard stage (or use patterned tape and star stickers like we did). Add a banner from the template, and you’re done!

Flip the cardboard over, then tape or hot glue a piece of parchment paper on top of the window. This is your theater screen. Attach a strip of poster board to the bottom of the screen to create a pocket for your scenery to sit in during performances. Finish by hot gluing small boxes to the base to prop your theater up, making sure they are tall enough for two LED lights to stand on either side of the screen.

Now for the entertainment! Cut 3 pieces of scenery and 3 puppets from black poster board, then tape drinking straws to the top of the puppets.

It’s showtime! Fire up those LED votive lights and enjoy!

And while we had some wonderful ghostly tales being told at Ethan’s Pika Theater…

And some intrepid cats on adventures elsewhere in the library…

At Seraphina’s theater, there were some distinct holiday vibes happening!