It’s beautiful, botanical, and inspiring…find your little light in the darkness with this lovely garden box illuminated with shimmering votive candles!
We read Just One Little Light, written by Kat Yeh, and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Balzer + Bray, 2023). With its gorgeous colors and uplifting text, the reader is powerfully reminded that even in darkness, just one little light is enough to light the way. Have faith. Your little light will always lead you to the path of beauty and hope.
You’ll need:
- 1 small box
- Colored cellophane
- Decorative flowers and leaves
- LED votive candles
- Scissors, tape, and glue for construction
We used 4.5″ x 4.5″ x 3″ cupcake boxes with window lids (if you’re using a regular box, simply cut a window in the lid). Next, cover the window with a piece of colored cellophane. Place votive candles inside the box, then finish by decorating the outside of the box with tons of paper flowers and leaves!
Once the kids garden boxes were finished, we hid them around the gallery, and kids went forth to find their own unique little lights! Note: we recommend writing the kids’ names on the bottom of the box, just to avoid confusion.
While this was a quiet and simple project, it was incredibly cozy and the kids absolutely loved it. Our story time can sometimes get a little raucous, so this sweet and mellow project was a delightful change of pace.
Did you know that Kat Yeh doesn’t just write picture books? Check out our interview with her about her middle grade novels The Truth About Twinkie Pie, and The Way to Bea. Also! Katie tested the recipe for Twinkie pie in the Pop Goes the Page blog kitchen. See how it turned out here! Mmmmmmm.
It’s a special week for hoots and haunts, so we’re delving into the blog archive to deliver our most ghostly posties for your Halloween celebrations!
Moving on to a different house, different haunting, we read Ghosts in the House (Square Fish reprint edition, 2010). After crafting a classic ghost chest, kids had to locate multiple phantoms spirited away in our elaborate
For simpler – but no less spooky – apparitions try this 
And speaking of optical illusions, we dug through Cotsen’s special collections and discovered a really cool book from 1864. Spectropia allows the reader to experience the scientific concept of afterimages. The post contains 
We’ll conclude our Halloween post with a ghostly guppy. We read Goldfish Ghost (Roaring Brook Press, 2017) and crafted this simple paper plate goldfish marionette that of course hangs upside down. It was quite a hit at story time!
Fall weather is here, kids are back in school, and that means…school picture day! We put a fun twist on class photos when we invited awesome author and illustrator Mary Lundquist to our library. Check out her interview at the end of the post!
The back of our boxes had flaps, so we hot glued a strategically-placed jumbo craft stick to the top flap, which allowed the class photo display to be propped up like an easel.
This project also works with a flat piece of cardboard or poster board and simple construction paper pockets. It’s super easy to modify!
Once kids had finished their class photo display boards, we had everyone gather on the gallery floor. Next, we distributed packs of cards containing the characters in the book. One kid had a pack of just cats, another had just bunnies, another had just foxes…you get the idea. When we said “Go!” the kids (and their caregivers) mingled, trading cards back and forth until they had a complete deck of all eleven unique characters.
As you can imagine, trading was brisk, and involved a lot of saying hi, talking, sharing, keeping track of your cards. It was so friendly, and so sweet.
There was one extra special bonus! Each deck had a blank card, so kids could draw themselves on the card as part of the class photo. OR…even BETTER…Mary Lundquist could draw you as one of her characters! Look at this Princeton tiger!
Mary was so fantastic to have at our library! Not only did she give a fabulous read aloud of Cat & Bunny, she did a free draw portion where kids voted on a new book character and she demonstrated how she illustrates!
Later, I caught up with Mary to ask her a few questions about her delightful work…
