Tag Archives: craft

Pop’s Top 5: Gross Giggles

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cockroach pizza boxLet’s face facts: most kids (and even some adults!) find gross things funny. They like fart jokes, quips about underwear, burps, bugs, and just saying the word “poop” can send the conversation into a 15 minute spiral. Well, kids…this post is for you. We did a round up of story time projects that involve a wee bit of gross humor. May it bring you giggles and joy!

#1 ULTRA-BRIGHT UNDIES

illuminating underwear

It took a over decade and 450 story times, but we finally offered an underpants story hour, complete with a customized string light project. Inspired by the magnificent book Creepy Pair of Underwear! Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown, the team who also brought us super creepy carrot fun.

#2 WHALE-SIZED POOPER SCOOPER

While this book, I Won a What?, was ultimately about taking care of a pet whale, if you watch the video in the post, you’ll see that whale care includes taking them on walk, bathing them, and yes…scooping up pom pom poop.

#3 ROACH RACER

cockroach pizza box

A pizza box, magnets, drinking straws, and rubber roaches were the winning combination at To Be Continued, our chapter book story time for kids ages 6-8. We read the most excellent Measle and the Wrathmonk, one of my son’s favorites books back in the day!

#4 MAMMOTH UNDIES

mammoth haircut

Returning once again to underpants, we have the truly hilarious book Hot Hot Hot in which woolly mammoths Oscar and Arabella try to beat the heat. The craft project was a decorative underwear reveal on a slightly alarmed mammoth.

#5 SKUNK SPRAY

back of skunk

The skunk is perhaps the most infamous creature in the animal world, with a startle reflex that just keeps giving. We read Please Don’t Upset P.U. Zorilla and then story time officers made deputy skunks with the unique capacity to spray plastic bags. And yes, we do have a training video.

HONORABLE MENTION: MEDIEVAL MUCKRAKERS

best event sign ever

While not technically a story time project, we couldn’t end this post without including our grossest, most popular event sign to date. It completely stole the show at a 2012 Robin Hood event. Click here to read about yuck-worthy Medieval jobs, and if you need some help unseeing it, please enjoy this complimentary copy of Medieval Vogue, which was also featured at the event.

UFO Repairs While-U-Wait

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It’s a beautiful day in the galaxy, but if your spaceship’s hyperdrive starts to hyperdroop, bring it into our full service UFO repair station! We even clean windows!

We read We Are Definitely Human by X. Fang (Tundra Books, 2024). When a giant crash startles Mr. Li from his bed, and he discovers three strangers who assure him they are DEFINITELY human. A kind man at heart, Mr. Li invites the strangers back to his house and offers to help them repair their ship…errr…car. Soon, the whole community is pitching in, and the strangers depart for further adventures feeling good about the humans of planet Earth.

This book is totally hilarious, with perfect comedic timing in both its text and illustrations. It was an absolute pleasure to read aloud – make sure to leave time for laugh breaks!

You’ll need:

  • 2 sturdy paper plates
  • 1 strip of poster board (approximately 1.5″ x 22″)
  • 1 clear plastic drinking cup (I used a 2.75″ tall plastic cocktail glass)
  • Flying saucer decorating materials (more on this below!)
  • Scissors, stapler and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

The UFOs we crafted for this story time are almost identical to the zip line ships from this 2015 post (you’ll find the full instructions here). Basically, the UFO is two paper plates with a circlet of poster board between them, a plastic cup cockpit, and a lot of fun supplies (tin foil, embossed foil paper, sparkle stems, dot stickers, and some glitter stars).

finished saucer

We did makes some modifications. We skipped the rocket boosters underneath this time, swapped the pom pom alien for a toilet paper tube alien, and replaced the paperclip on top of the cockpit with a loop of clear beading cord.

But the thing that really made this story time one of the best of the year so far? The UFO repair shop!

I’ve been working with kids for decades, and sometimes I forget how powerful a box, tin foil, strand of lights, mesh tubing, and drinking straws can be. That’s basically all I used to create this repair shop. But the reaction to the set up was so powerful – customers lined up for a solid 20 minutes, coming back repeatedly with new and unique problems their UFOs were experiencing. I would hand them them the repair “wands” and we would boop and bleep our way to fixing the engines.

We also managed to do a bit of upcycling…you might recognize the strand of red lights from Katie’s awesome 2019 holiday creation, or the white coveralls from our story time stint as sanitation superstars.

Tiny Potter

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In addition to being super into show jumping story times, freaked out by clowns, and unusually influenced by a cookbook, I really really REALLY love miniatures (ask my daughter about my obsession with dollhouse cakes). So when MGA’S Mini Verse released a “Wizarding World: Harry Potter Make it Mini Potions Class” set, I was beyond thrilled to enter the miniature world of Hogwart’s.

The set, which is intended for ages 8+ and contains over 100+ pieces, retails for around $30. I’ll say it from the jump…the quality of the materials in this set was outstanding. The pieces were good quality plastic, felt substantial, had a lot of details, and were really pleasing to work with. Everything was packed extraordinarily well, with easy instructions printed on the outside of each of the parts containers.

However, there was one set of instructions floating free inside the box. While it did say “Read Me First!” in big letters, I honestly almost missed the piece of paper as I unpacked everything. Good thing I did spot it because it had all the information about resin, glue, and potions. I’m not sure why these instructions weren’t incorporated with the others. It would have been much easier to construct everything that way.

I must also say…this set puts you to WORK! One of the first steps is to lay each individual classroom floor tile using a pot of glue (cleverly disguised as a wooden bucket) and a mini float (which yes, know I am technically holding the wrong way in the photo).

I also had to lay each brick on the walls, using more glue and a mini trowel. Like the floor tiles, the spaces for the bricks were individually numbered, so matching each to its assigned space was easy.

At this point, I was honestly looking for Dobby the house elf to help me out. But I forged on, snapping together the pieces for the two bookcases, work table, and arranging all the little bottles and jars.

When the classroom was finished, it was time for the main event: concocting the mini potion! You had a choice of two: purple or teal. Following the instructions, I gathered all the equipment and ingredient bottles.

To make a potion, you have to pour the powder into the resin inside the cauldron, stir it, use tongs to add some color beads to an empty bottle, funnel the purple resin into said bottle which you then seal and tie a label on. What could possibly go wrong? Ummmmmmm…

Oh, I made a mess. The purple powder went everywhere, I dropped the funnel, everything got all over my fingers, my shirt, my desk. Snape would have absolutely deducted 50 points from Ravenclaw for my potions ineptitude. But when it was finally complete, it was a very pretty potion. I’m not sure if the resin was ultimately supposed to harden, but weeks later, the potion is still sloshing around in the bottle. So caretakers with curious children who like to unbottle things be warned. You may want to keep this particular potion far out of reach.

The amount of labor, glue, resin, and general potential for messiness leads me to suggest that this set for kids ages 10+ (but ok for 8 year-olds with adult assistance). As I mentioned before, the details on the set are exquisite and it’s fun to arrange and re-arrange the miniatures. This would be fantastic for a Harry Potter fan, and a great art kit to boot. 4.75 out of 5!