Mini Putt-Putt

The Very Hungry Caterpillar mini golf station at a program earlier this summer was so popular that I decided to make an entire Mini Putt-Putt program! I painted about half of the cardboard cutouts and the other half were poster sized prints over cardboard. This program was for 2-5 year olds and lasted about 30 minutes (or as long as kids wanted to play).

I had made little score cards kids could use to keep score as they went and trade their card for a prize (popsicles) at the end. 

After getting their score card, kids picked up a club (pool noodle) and ball (from a ball pit) to head outside and play!

Happy Birthday, Eric Carle!

This Summer, our library celebrated Eric Carle's 90th birthday! Here's what we did at our birthday party:

Pin the Tail on the Blue Horse

Find a new favorite book

Enjoy a snack with the Hungry Caterpillar

Read The Secret Birthday Message and re-tell the story

Mini Golf with the Hungry Caterpillar (I saved this to use for a mini golf program later in the summer)

Sign a birthday card (we sent this to the Eric Carle Museum after the program)

Roll a giant die and count out the correct number of ducks

Animal color puzzles

Tell a story using our favorite Eric Carle characters

Little Scientists: Birds

This STEAM-based program usually starts with a story (non-fiction or fiction with factual elements) before we break up into stations to practice our STEAM skills. This program is for 2-5 year olds and lasts about 30 minutes. Here's what we were up to this time:

Worm Hunt- This station was just finding different colors of pipe cleaners in shredded paper and sorting them by color, by the younger attendees thought it was the greatest activity ever.

Bird or Bat? We used some pictures to decide if certain characteristics (fur vs. feathers, for example) belonged to birds or bats. This station was mainly for the 3-5 year olds but they had a good time sorting.

Bird Feeders- our take home activity was watching for birds in your yard (counting how many are on the ground vs in the air, etc.) so we made bird feeders to attract feathered friends. We used sunflower seed butter instead of peanut butter to be safe.

Eat Like a Bird- This one was definitely geared for the older kids, but everybody had fun. I put out a variety of utensils (tongs, tweezers, a straw, a chopstick, etc.) and bowls of objects (large pompoms, small seeds, marshmallows, water) and kids tried piccking up each of the objects to guess what kinds of foods birds might eat. I hung up close-up pictures of the bird beaks/bills to give hints.

Finally, we used a microscope and magnifying glasses to examine bird feathers. I got a few at the poultry building of a county fair and my parents donated some molted feathers from their pet macaw. It was also fun just pulling apart the barbs and smoothing them back together.  

Little Scientists: Frogs and Toads

This session of Little Scientists was extra fun! This STEAM-based program usually starts with a story (non-fiction or fiction with factual elements) before we break up into stations to practice our STEAM skills. This program is for 2-5 year olds and lasts about 30 minutes. Here's what we were up to this time:

How many frogs can fit on a lily pad? We practiced our estimation skills by guessing and then testing how many frogs could fit on a lily pad (foam cutout) before it sank. Did it depend on how big the lily pad was or how close to the edge you put the frog?

Amphibian Hop- I researched a few different types of frogs and toads to see how far they can jump. Kids were then encouraged to jump as far as they could and see which amphibian they were closest too. The photos of each species was also roughly to scale so kids could see that even tiny frogs can jump very far!

We practiced our one-to-one correspondence by feeding frogs the correct number of flies.

Next, we practiced our skip counting (and more frog jumping) by hopping from lily pad to lily pad. Younger kids could count by twos and make smaller jumps while bigger kids could count by fives and make bigger jumps.

And my personal favorite station- We colored cut our frogs and used party blowers with velcro dots to try catching our own flies! Some kids got it right away and some kids needed practice, but adults loved seeing the kids try!

Name Art

This super simple program popped into my head when we found an entire pack of really big paper hiding in our back room. It was for K-6th grade (mostly 2nd-4th attended) and it lasted for 30 minutes.

We started by using painter's tape to mark out our names on the giant paper. One or two younger kids needed a little help with the curvy letters but most parents stayed and we also had a teen volunteer to help out:

Luckily the weather was amazing that day so we took our posters outside and painted them there:

A couple kids took theirs straight home but most took them inside to dry a little while they looked around the library. I made sure to tell kids to let their paint dry completely before they took the tape off. This was a super easy, super fun program that could easily be done with poster board or other large paper.

The Pigeon Goes Back to School

Book-based programs are always very popular at our library, so we knew we had to do a program celebrating Mo Willems' new book The Pigeon Has to Go to School. This program was for Pre-K through 2nd grade and lasted about 45 minutes.

We started out with my coworker (wearing her Pigeon Halloween costume) reading the new book:

And playing a felt board game (linked here):

Then we broke up into Pigeon and school themed stations:

Take a picture with Pigeon on a bus! This photo op stayed out through September and it was a HUGE hit!

Pin the Tail on the Pigeon (from a Mo Willems activity book purchased at Kohl's)

Feed a Real Bird- we made pipe cleaner and cheerio bird feeders to practice our fine motor skills and feed our feathered friends.

Count with the Pigeon- we used play-dough to practice counting and tens tables with the Pigeon.

Find the Pigeon- 3 cups with school buses and one has the Pigeon on board. Can you find guess which one?

Pencil Cup Craft- we used tea tins, tissue paper, and glue to make our own pencil holders for school.

Cooking Hot Dogs- We tossed felt hot dog shaped bean bags into hula hoop "frying pans".

Snack Time- although the duckling didn't visit, we had a cookie snack in his honor.

Baby Explorers: October 2019

Baby Explorers is the program I run for infants and toddlers 0-36 months, where we use activities, crafts, and early science experiments to explore the world around us. I try to include 4 activities per session: gross motor, fine motor, create (a craft or take home activity), and explore (a sensory activity). Here's what we were up to this month:

Fine Motor: Pipe cleaner threading- we used giant pipe cleaners and slices of foam pool noodles to practice threading. Of course some of us just had fun playing with the pipe cleaners!

Explore: Sensory bottles- I filled several bottles with a variety of objects to explore. Some were heavy, some made a lot of sound, and some were shiny. Adults were encouraged to talk about the colors, textures, and sounds they experienced.

Gross Motor: Ball pit- we filled our kiddie pool with balls from our play time set. The sides of the pool were nice for our babies who needed a little help sitting up and adults were encouraged to talk about the colors they saw in the pool (and also to talk to the other adults about how cute all the babies were!)

Create: Unfortunately I didn't get any photos, but our Create station was making bath tub clings. Kids or adults drew shapes on foam sheets and then cut them out. When they're wet, they cling to the sides of the bath tub!