Tag Archives: storytime

Yes! Dinosaurs on Wedding Cakes

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It’s not June, but we’re already rolling out the fancy wedding cakes for romantic reptiles! This simple project was met with incredible enthusiasm with the story time kids, both with cake decorating, and well-dressed dinosaurs.

We read There’s a Dodo on the Wedding Cake by Wade Bradford, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick, 2021). When Mr. Snore, violinist for hire, arrives at the Sharemore Hotel for a wedding reception, he quickly discovers a dodo nibbling on the wedding cake. He shoos him away, but is soon accosted by two beavers who also want the cake. The situation escalates, with more and more creatures invading the room until FINALLY it’s a booming dinosaur. What’s Mr. Snore to do? Thankfully, the wedding planner explains that the animals are all guests (except the mischievous dodo). Apologies are made, and a delightful wedding reception ensues.

This book is HILARIOUS and so fun to read for a story time. Highly recommended!

You’ll need:

  • A number of assorted boxes
  • Cake decorating craft supplies
  • 2 toilet paper tubes
  • Construction paper
  • Scissors, glue, and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating

First, the cake! As you can below, the cake is very simple – just stack some boxes on top of one another and decorate. We offered tissue paper, color tape, stickers, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, self-adhesive foam, and crepe paper streamers. Kids were free to be as elaborate as they liked!

To make your dinosaur cake toppers, wrap 2 toilet paper tubes in green construction paper, then add mouths, eyes, wedding togs, and little arms.

We had a number of different wedding topper combinations – including no wedding togs at all, just dinos running all over the tiers of the cake. It’s all good!

SUPER STUDENTS!

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jared aldwin crooksQ: In a previous post, you mentioned creative programs & projects students have done in the past for your library…can you share some of them?

A: We’d love to! Over the years, we have worked with so many incredibly talented students at Princeton University. From developing in-person community events, to designing exhibits, to headlining blog posts, to working with our young visitors – the students’ energy, ideas, enthusiasm, and dedication is always next level. Need a gang of literary villains? Trying to find the perfect recipe for Pumpkin Pasties? Would you like Alice to read you a chapter from her adventures in Wonderland? Want to learn about cloud science? How about a Rube Goldberg machine? Or perhaps Gandalf can lead you on a quest? Here’s a round up of some of our favorite collaborations on Pop Goes the Page:

MINI GOLF MASTERMIND: RICKY FEIG

ricky 3Our Seuss Mini Golf event was fun chaos, but the show-stoppers were the golf holes and magnificent Onceler Tower designed and constructed by Ricky. Legend has it that the Onceler Tower is still standing in a Princeton University campus building (I checked a couple years ago)!

THE MATHAMAGICIAN: CASANDRA MONROE

robes 2The Day at Digitopolis event was massive (we had to split it into a post 1 and post 2), but a big shout out goes to Casandra Monroe for playfully covering the Mathamagician’s robes with artistic equations. But definitely check out the two blog posts – you’ll also meet Emile Oshima and Rei Mastsuura who ran abacus races, Matt Smith and Demi Zhang who taught musical fractions, and a number of student groups who contributed their considerable skills!

MUGGLE STUDIES 101: TÉA WIMER

muggle artifacts curator, tea wimer

It’s not everyday you meet faculty of Muggle Studies, but Téa was just that! She developed an exhibit for our Wand Works event, and was there to answer even the most ridiculous wizarding questions about the mysterious and mind-boggling world of Muggles.

MAGIC UNLEASHED: JOSÉ M RICO

jose m rico

Also part of Wand Works was the insanely talented José, who designed an EPIC interactive Harry Potter spell game and premiered it at the event. You have to see it to believe it. And you can download and play it free here!

LITERAL FAIRY GODMOTHER: SYLVIA JACOBSON

fairy godmotherBe careful…this fairy godmother grants wishes EXACTLY as you make them, thanks to Sylvia’s tongue-in-cheek literalness and rainbow wings. An oft-requested visitor at our children’s literary society, she wielded her star wand with grace and a wicked sense of humor!

DESIGNER TO THE (LITERARY) STARS: JAMES JARED

james-jaredThis particular post shows up on our favorite lists a LOT. James had 180 minutes to costume as many literary characters as he could at at local thrift store. Spoiler alert…he rocked it. The post also features student models Amanda Blanco, Ailyn Brizo, Joani Etskovitz, and Grace Turner, who were simply amazing!

THE ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE: ALIISA LEE

self portrait_artwork by aliisa lee

The most magical thing about this student? She still works for us! Artist Aliisa Lee was a student illustrator at our library for four years, and in that time she contributed everything from thaumatropes, to literary Pokemon, to book perps, to the logo of our podcast! Aliisa is also the official illustrator of our annual 350 for 50 writing contest, which is currently in its 15th year. We love you Aliisa!

summer announcement logo_artwork by aliisa lee

Also! Starting off the blog post was Jared Crooks, an undergraduate AND grad student in science who not only wrote a picture book, he came to our story time to share it and build awesome robots.

Beautiful Lights, Beautiful Night

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It’s a simple project, but oh-so-beautiful! Design your own aurora borealis in Arctic skies, then light it up for a creative and colorful glow box!

We read The Lights the Dance in the Night by Yuval Zommer (Doubleday Books, 2021). Beginning as specks of dust from the sun, the story follows them as they whirl to Earth and change into gleaming, shining, lights for Arctic animals and people! Poetic and gentle, this book is just lovely to read and share.

You’ll need:

  • 1 box with a clear lid or window (more on this below!)
  • An assortment of tissue paper
  • 1 string of LED mini lights
  • White, blue, and yellow poster board
  • Scissors, tape, and glue stick for construction

The box for this project will need to be a good size, sturdy, and have a clear lid or window. I found some 12″ x 8″ x 2.5″ cake boxes on Amazon that totally did the trick (20 boxes cost $19).

Now for the aurora borealis! Open the box and glue tissue paper snippets on the interior side of the window. We found glue sticks to be the best way to adhere things, because you can clearly see the glue going on and it dries clear! When the sky is finished, tape a string of LED mini lights to the back of the box like so:

Close the box and use poster board to create a landscape on the front of the box. We used cool Arctic colors: light blue, dark blue, yellow and white. The boxes turned out great…especially this one with a FLYING UNICORN!!!