Tag Archives: game

Digging Those Dinos

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It begins as a simple brown briefcase, but unfolds into a magnetized dino dig! No briefcase? No worries! This Katie-designed masterpiece can be replicated with any box top or cardboard surface.

We read One Hundred Bones by Yuval Zommer (Templar, 2016). Scruff is a messy but happy-go-lucky stray who loves to dig (much to the chagrin of the neighbors). But when he finds an enormous cache of bones, he rallies the other dogs to help unearth them. Some of these bones seem a little…unusual, so the gang goes to the Natural History Museum, where Professor Dinovsky is happy to receive their dino-tastic discovery AND adopt Scruff, digger extraordinaire!

You’ll need:

  • 1 flat piece of cardboard (ours was 10″ x 15″)
  • 1 flexible magnetic adhesive sheet (ours was 8″ x 10″)
  • 1 dino bones template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ brown construction paper
  • 1 dino bones template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ white card stock
  • 1 dino dig tools template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ white card stock
  • Scissors, glue and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

In its most basic form, this is a magnetized board that you can match the also-magnetized bones to. So this project can be done with any flat piece of cardboard. First, trim a .5″ x 10″ strip off a 8″ x 10″ flexible magnetic sheet (which we purchased on Amazon). Set the strip aside, then stick the remaining sheet to the cardboard. Glue the dino bone template on top of the magnet sheet. In the below photo, you can see the black magnetic sheet peeking out from under the brown paper…

Now cut the dino bones from the template. Section the magnetic strip into pieces, then stick them onto the backs of the various bones. The bones will now connect to the dino template (and you can see we added a tissue paper border for extra fun)!

Scatter the bones through a room and have your little paleontologists discover, dig, and collect them up using the paper tools from this template!

We had the good fortune of scoring some flat cardboard boxes with flaps through this program, so we took the project to the next level by turning it into a fold out dig with envelope pockets for the bones and tools.

We added a string strap to turn in into a portable briefcase, complete with a wood bead and rubber band closure and dino prints stenciled on the outside!

We finished the entire project by handing out plastic pith helmets (purchased from Oriental Trading Company). As you can imagine, a dino-themed project went over VERY well. There’s always a dino shirt or two at story time, but we were delighted when one little girl arrived with a stunning purple dino bag…

And I can’t resist adding this photo of Katie snagging the above photo whilst being carefully supervised by the dino bag’s owner. So sweet!

Survival of the LOUDEST

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Librarians aren’t classically considered the loud type, but we found a squad of very willing ones to test drive “Really Loud Librarians,” a hilarious word association board game from the company that brought you Exploding Kittens. Spoiler alert: we had FUN!

The game is available for $20 both online through the company and Target. So I swung by the toy section on my weekly grocery run to pick one up.

The box contains a game board, pieces, category cards, and a timer. It looks very snazzy and I absolutely love the font the designers used. Very librarily.

The object of the game is to split into two teams (Team Gertrude Birdwhistle and Team Wilfred Dankworth, respectfully). Taking turns, each team draws a category card and circles the board until the timer runs out, shouting words that fit in that certain category, all of which must start with the matching letter on the game board. An example catagory would be “Desserts,” and the words as you progress around the board might be chocolate, flan, licorice, pie, sundae, tart, etc. The first team to reach 12 points wins.

Really Loud Librarians is for ages 8+ and two or more people can play at a time. So we rounded up some talented Princeton University librarians. We put on our toughest game faces, choose our field names, and got ready to (very) competitively categorize things.

Well, this was a total blast. It’s amazing how your mind can go blank when the timer is running out and you’re trying to think of a kitchen appliance that starts with “C.” There was a lot of laughter, cheering, good-natured ribbing, suspenseful moments, and yes…it got LOUD.

Some of the card categories are hard though! One team might get “Colors,” and then the next gets “Phone Apps.” That’s a tough category! You’ll need to access the board during your turn, so make sure to play on a small to mid-size table. It also gets a little difficult to keep track of your laps, so we suggest one person act as MC to count laps, turn the timer, and step in to decide whether what you shouted out is a qualifying word.

Also…and this might just be us…but whoever played Team Wilfred always won. Probably a fluke, but if you’re reading this and taking the game to a party, it might just give you an magical edge.

Really Loud Librarians was fun, lively, easy to play, and just an all around good time. Highly recommended!

Special thanks to librarians Neggin Keshavarzian, Beth Kushner, Hilary Murusmith, and Amy Vo for lending their extraordinary word-smithing abilities!

Studio Snapshots: David Deen

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Today we’re featuring David Deen, the amazing illustrator of Tolo, Cotsen’s digital adventure! Furiously sketching and coloring owlbears and nagas from his brother’s D&D books, David also grew up reading fantasy books. After earning a BA in Art, David worked as a computer game artist before going freelance. We asked him to give us a quick tour of his Colorado studio (and we get to meet his cats)!

As my art has shifted to being mostly digital, my studio space has shrunk to a fairly compact little space in the corner of my basement. I still have a sketchbook for initial concept sketching and printouts of the information I need to reference. And we have two cats that keep me company as I work, Summer (shown above) and Smudge.

Most of the work is done on my iPad Pro, where I use a couple of different programs designed to provide the look of traditional media with the benefits of easy revisions and no loss of quality from the artwork being photographed or scanned.

While I’m working on the illustrations, I use the computer to find reference photos and look up information I might need… and to entertain my ears with music. Once the final images are created, I send them straight to the computer through Dropbox. Then I can finalize the files, send them to the client, and do all of the other business involved in illustration.

The studio for creating traditional artwork is currently being used as a guest bedroom; the drafting table is folded down and the supplies are all put away. I hope to get back in there in the new year and make some paintings again, but in the meantime, my little digital corner of the basement is enough to keep me making all the artwork I need.

Images courtesy of David Deen