Tag Archives: gross

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.

Our Most Popular Event Sign, Ever

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best event sign everNo, it’s not a sign that says “Free Cupcakes.”

Our most popular event sign, the sign that people were lining up to take pictures of, the sign that a middle school teacher took home, the sign that another teacher asked me to send her the copy for, was…wait for it…the “Jobs You Don’t Want” sign at a large-scale Robin Hood event my library hosted in 2012. Yes, the medieval equivalent of Dirty Jobs nearly stole the show.

The sign was displayed at the “Jobs You Don’t Want” table, which was hosted by the Princeton Tour Company. The folks at the Princeton Tour Company are always up for fun ways to connect kids to history, so when I pitched my idea about medieval occupational grossness, they barely flinched.

So, ready to read some truly awful job descriptions? Click here: Jobs You Don’t Want

At the event table, kids could try their hand at another classic medieval job – rat catching. To create the rat catching game, I scoured thrift stores for “garbage.” Among other things, I scored a couple old baskets, a tarnished metal tray, two dirty wooden bucket thingees, an extremely ancient leather slipper, wooden bowls, a metal tankard, a stained bolster, some gourds, and an old horseshoe. I also provided some paper crinkle to accentuate that “trash heap feeling.” Then we placed small plastic rats in various locations in the trash heap.

garbageKids attempted to “catch” a rat by using rat catching cages (i.e. plastic baskets strung on curtain rods). If you successfully lowered the cage over a rat, you got to keep it! You could play multiple times too, and therefore assemble quite a collection.

rat catchingAlso included at this event – professional stage fighters, archery, knights in armor, live period music, medieval fashions, a castle play area, siege engines, alchemy, illuminated letters, forest survival, stained glass, a kid-friendly alehouse, dragons, unicorns, live hawks, venison chili, a tax game (featured here in our sneaky math post), a pair of court jesters, and a food drive to benefit a local food bank. Check out the 2-page event map!