Egypt Uncovered!

A favorite subject for children is Egypt and King Tut.  For many years I held a summer program called Time Travelers.  Each week the children would participate in activities designed around a specific era.  Egypt and dinosaur days were the most popular.  During the class the children would learn through the hands-on activities planned for the era.  As a youth services librarian, I have planned for the 2013 Summer Reading Program (SRP) Dig into Reading, a program called Egypt Unwrapped.  The activities will be based on the tried and true activities used for all those years in my other life.

A  favorite book for making artifacts is by Andrew Haslam called Ancient Egypt from the series Make It Work!  The activities are detailed and more involved than can be done in a one hour program, but can be made ahead of time and used as artifacts.  This is the mask I made based on the one in the book.  I used a craft mask form with some plasticine clay to form the raised eyes, ears and beard.  The whole form was covered with papier mâché.  To make the hood I used a cardboard cut into the shape and then covered again in papier mâché.  Acrylic paint and a steady hand was used to paint in the details. 

 

Another artifact from the book was easier to make, the wall tile.  This was a copy copy decoupaged to a plaster plaque.  I used a box lid and regular plaster of Paris, and then dried.  The color copy was then applied with a decoupage medium.  I found that the ink on the copy wanted to spread, so a small amount of brushing of the medium is needed.  Since it is to represent a 1000 year old artifact, imperfections are fine. 

 

Children love to talk about the "yucky" stuff.  Pretend embalming is a big hit.  Have several stuffed animals (dollar store or second-hand store purchase) that can be "dissected" during the program.  Pre-cut open the stomachs of the animals and remove some of the stuffing.  Add in the "organs," such as bags of sand or bean bags to represent the liver and balloons for the lungs. If you are feeling gooey, add cooked spaghetti or lasagna noodles for the bowels.  If not, long skinny balloons filled with water make great intestines.  I used large plastic cups for canopic jars marked with the proper organ symbol to place the "organs."  The cavity is filled with tissue and gems (shiny buttons, fake gems, even sequins will work).  The whole animal is then wrapped with toilet tissue to mummify the critter.  If you feel adventurous, adding a sprinkle of sand to represent natron.  If you don't want to waste the tissue, you can use regular tissue paper cut into large strips.  

Other Program Ideas

1. Children can make and take a mummy.  Clothespins, the old fashioned kind, with a round head and two prongs are wrapped in plaster craft.  Plaster craft is a strip of gauze pretreated with plaster of Paris.  Adding gems or sequins to the wrapping makes the experience more like a "real" mummy.  
2. There are several coloring sarcophagus sheets available on the internet. 
3. An old-fashioned ice cream spoon (a flat wooden spoon shaped stick) can be covered with crepe paper, two wiggle eyes glued on the spoon, and a pin back makes a great mummy pin to wear home.  
4. A fun game to play is to wrap a teammate in tissue and have a race to see which team can wrap and run their mummy across the room.  
5. Play the song, Walk Like an Egyptian and practice your Egyptian walking.  
6. Dig for artifacts in homemade dough or a store-purchased  dough product.  
7. There are several kits available that look like a pyramid that can be chipped away to uncover an artifact. 
8. Write your name in hieroglyphics or decode a phrase written in hieroglyphics. 
9. Dip a folded coffee filter in tea to dye.  Dry and unfold and glue to both sides of a fan-shaped piece of card stock that has a craft stick glued to the middle of the bottom edge.  Add some raffia to the stick and slip on some pony beads and you have a great papyrus fan. 
10. Snack, dried fruit or fruit snacks.  Adventurous?  Beef jerky. 

Favorite Children's Books to Read Aloud

Our library is busy building a list of 100 of the top children's books.  As a storyteller, I have just a handful of my most favorite books to read to children.  By far the story I love to tell the most is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams.  There are several ways of reading the story.  First is to read the story without the children's involvement.  The story builds and as the little old lady is nearing her home, the pace builds quickly and the words should be read faster and faster until she is safely in her cottage.  Then the pace can quiet down as she rocks.  The line that reads, "Should she answer it?" can be asked of the children.  Some will say "yes" and some will say "no."  Remind the children that she is not afraid of anything!
 

A second way to read to a group of older children is to have the children act out the parts of the scarecrow as the little old lady meets them.  The children will shake for the shirt, clap for the gloves, tap their feet for the shoes, as so forth.  The children will need to be standing for the story.  If you do not want the children standing, they can help repeat the repetitive lines in the story.  

Another favorite book is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.  This story involves three little owls waiting for their mother to come home.  The children can relate to their having to wait for their mother at different points in their lives.  The three owls each have a distinctive voice inflection.  The oldest (I feel Sarah is the oldest) has a normal tone, Percy is a bit higher inflection and Bill, the baby, has the highest pitch, very baby-like tone.  At the point where the owls feel like their mother will never come back and they close their eyes, I ask the children if the mother will come back.  Some of the children say "yes" and some say "no."  In your best "mother" voice say "What's all the fuss..."  If the children at the story time with their mother, I ask after the story is over to give their moms' a hug.  

A favorite fairy tale to tell is Three Billy Goats Gruff.  This is a traditional story that works well with a flannel board.  There are several flannel kits and a variety of books that tell this story.  The best part of the story is to modulate your voice to the size of the goat.  The wee or little billy goat gets a high pitched voice, middle-sized voice for the middle brother and booming, loud voice for biggest goat.  The ogre gets a version of the biggest goat, but I like to add a bit of a comical inflection.  When the biggest goat says, "I am the biggest..." the ogre gets a "Hummm?" that is somewhat of a Simpson's character's voice.  I try not to make the ogre's death a big deal, he just floats down the river never to be seem again.

Later blogs with include other favorites.

At the library we have two children's book clubs.  One is for children ages seven to nine, and the other is for ages nine to 12.  The book clubs are very popular, we usually have 12-16 children at each month's meeting.  At registration for the next month, the children get a copy of the book to keep (which helps with the popularity of the book clubs). My co-youth librarian applied for a Grant through a popular store and we were awarded the money to purchase the books.  Our Friends of the Library has in the past supported the book club purchases.  We shop traditional library sources and order un-processed books.  A great source has been the twice yearly Scholastic book fair held in our area for teachers and librarians, we have found good prices for current titles. 

Each program runs for approximately an hour.  A typical program may include:

1. Optional Ice Breaker game
2. Book discussion
3. Game
4. Craft
5. Snack

The beginning of the hour is the book discussion.  The children vote thumbs up or down on the book.  The librarian has a few key questions developed to promote discussion.  Once a while, an ice breaker game is played to prompt the children into a more relaxed mood and helps open the group to a discussion.  Ice breakers include games such as the Candy Game.  The children receive a small cup of colored candies.  Going in turns around the room each color the children pulls a candy out of the cup without looking and then must tell something about themselves.  Red = something about their school, Blue = something about their family, Green = what is their favorite food, etc.

The children enjoy crafts and usually there is a themed craft to go with the book.  A felt mouse bookmark for Stuart Little.  A bottle cap necklace with a photo of a pet inside for books on dogs/pets.  Clothespin mummies for a non-fiction book on archeology.  Masks for a book that had a masked ball.  In a pinch we will use purchased craft kits or kits that are left from other programs.  The craft is simple and easy to make in about ten minutes. 

Games include popular group board games as well as games popular in school.  For a book on the Titanic each child received a sealed envelope as a boarding pass.  Inside was a description of a person who was on the ship.  The children read their bio to the group.  Before opening the inside envelope that told if their passenger survived, the children guessed on the answer.  Not one child was upset with the outcome.  This activity is similar to the Titanic exhibit that travels the country.  The games are tailored to the age of the children in the book club.

Snacks are very popular.  We try to match the snack to the book if we have time.  A book had ice cream sodas, and the children had sodas.  "Champagne" of  sparkling juice for Titanic passengers.  Chocolate dipped fortune cookies for a book with an Asian theme.  Cupcakes for a book with a birthday theme. If the book does not mention a food item, or we are pressed for time, bagged snacks such as chips or fruit snacks will be used along with drink box. 

At the end of the meeting, the children receive a copy of next month's book.  In the book is a bookmark with the date and time of the next meeting as a reminder. 

Stuffed Animal Sleepover

One of the most popular programs at the library is the Stuffed Animal Sleepover.  I first heard about this type of program on Pubyac, a listserv for youth services librarians.  An evening story time is planned with just one or two bedtime stories.  At registration, we recommend the family bring an animal that can be left for one night, and is not needed by the child to go to sleep.  When the children arrive the animals are given a name tag with the animal's name and the child's name on the other side.  The parents receive a note explaining they should leave the library quickly and that they may return the next day after a specified time.  The children will tuck in their animals, we used two sheets, and the children placed their animals around the "bed."  If a child does not want to leave an animal we offer to substitute one of our puppets, most leave the animal they brought.  The children will tippy-toe out of the room and the door is closed.  

Once the children leave, the animals "wake-up" and the mischief begins.  We place the animals around the library.  They read a story, play on the computers, play hide-and-seek in the stacks, play with toys, slide down the book return, they even order a pizza!  Where did they get the money?

The animals are photographed and I try to get each animal alone, and in group shots.  We have a small library, I can imagine if you have a large facility you could find even more creative places for the animals.  

Take a large number of digital photos and upload then to the computer and send the photos to a big-box store's one-hour photo department.  I look for coupons from various stores in the area and can usually get the prints for about 10 cents each.  For a program that has 20 children, you will need about 200 photos, at 10 cents each the program costs $1 per child.  You can get by with less per child, as low as five photos each if you cannot get the low price.

The photos are distributed to the various animals, each animal gets one or two group shots, a few individual shots, and smaller group shots.  The photos will tell the story of what the animals did while the children were gone. I write a letter to go with the photos.  I tell the children a story about what the animals did while they were gone.  The animals woke up, got into mischief, ordered pizza, and finally the librarians got the animals back to sleep.  I  also add that the librarians are very tired.   The photos and the story go into an envelope that is stapled to the name tag. 

The look on the faces of the children are very special.  Most of the children want to look a the photos right away and are awestruck by what the animals did.  They seem to like photos of the "hidden" places in the library, the back room, book drop, etc. Try this program and let me know how it went.

Firefly Jar Craft

 

This summer the theme for the reading program was Dream Big, Read!  The library planned thematic programs, one for the preschool set was a cute craft found on Pinterest.  A jar made into a firefly using foam sheets and glow sticks. The difficulty was finding the proper jar for the craft.  Oriental Trading has 4" jars for sale, which was a possibility.  The Pinterest post used glass jars, not really an option for preschoolers.  The solution came after we finished a sand art program, the plastic jars the sand came in were perfect for the firefly craft.  We started the program with Eric Carle's The Very Lonely Firefly and moved right into the craft.

Materials:
4 to 5 inch tall clear jars
Foam sheets in assorted bright colors
Chenille stems
Wiggle eyes approximately 1/2" to 1"
Markers to draw mouth
Assorted shapes and colors foam stickers
Glue dots, glue, two-way tape, tape
4 inch glow sticks (we found 2 for a dollar at the dollar store)

Cut two larger ovals, one for the head and one for the tummy.
Cut two wing shapes.
Cut one or two nose circles.

Assembly:
Put jar lid on before making the firefly.
Decorate the face with one or two circles for the nose, wiggle eyes, draw a mouth.  Tape a chenille stem that has been bent in two and curled at the ends to the back of the head.  Attach to the lid.
Using 2-way tape, glue, and glue dots attached tummy oval and wings.
Decorate the wings and tummy with stickers.
Open and place the glow stick inside, the hard part is to wait to break the stick until it's dark.

It's hard to photograph in a dark room, but here is how the firefly looks with the glow stick.

    Welcome

This inaugural blog will be random thoughts on teaching young children and working as a children's librarian.  It took a long time to come into librarianship, but I have hit the ground running.  I have so many ideas to implement that I hope there is enough time to achieve my goals.  Why Duck, Duck, Juice?  Many years ago we were learning to play the favorite game, Duck, Duck, Goose.  One little girl would go around the circle saying, Duck, Duck, Juice.  I thought she had trouble saying the word Goose.  We were studying barn animals and I found out that the girl didn't know what a goose was, and substituted a word she did know.  I loved the phrase and said many times, that's the name of the book. Since the book may never be written, here is the blog!

Speaking of misunderstanding words, as a small girl, my sister came home from Sunday school.  My mom asked her what she had learned today.  My sister said in a matter of fact tone, "We learned that prayer with all the lettuce in it."  My mom was very confused by this and asked her to explain the prayer.  "Oh you know, mom, the one that goes, God is good, God is great, Let us thank..." 

There are lots of things the kids said over time, some I can write and others I will keep quiet, until they become famous and I'm interviewed on E! or Entertainment Tonight about what was (famous person) like when the were young.  One that I can repeat is about a boy named Andrew.  We were discussing Moms and Dads.  All the children were saying if they wanted to be a mom or dad when they grew up.  Andrew started out wanting to be a dad.  In mid-sentence he changed his mind.  I asked, "Andrew, why don't you want to be a dad?"  Andrew took his pointer finger and circled it over his head and said, "I don't want to be a dad, cause dad's get no hair right here!" 

More about me, I started out as an art teacher.  I worked for three years and took time off to have children.  When my youngest was three I found the preschool position.  I never would have thought it would last for 23 years.  A few years ago I was laid-off for a short period of time, six months.  The question of what do I want to do with the rest of my life popped up as it does when people are out of work.  Why not go back to school, I like to read, I'm always in the library, hey, why not become a librarian!  The ah-ha moment.  Scary to go back to school when you are past middle age, but I am proud to say, I did it, passed with a 4.0, and now so happy to be working as a children's librarian.  Now I know what I want to do with the rest of my life!!

Most of the time you will find ideas for projects on a variety of themes.  Some are for Summer Reading Programs, some are for themed story times, flannel board ideas, and random crafting for children. 

Getting my ducks in a row, thanks for reading, Alicia