Make Your Own: Pinata

Pinatas are the best. There are a lot of ways to make them and everyone has a favorite; this is mine. All the pictures come from the making of the Minotaur pinata from our Percy Jackson party way back when the Mark of Athena came out. 

You will need:

                    1) Ballons              2) Ripped Up Tissue Paper     3) Watered Down Glue

1) We're using full size ballons but making mini, personal pinatas out of water ballons is fun too.

2) Newspaper will also work (if you really saturate it) but if you're going for asethics then tissue paper is where it's at.

3) Did you know that mod podge is just weak glue? Save yourself some money and just water down craft glue for this project.

4) Pipe cleaners or string is also helpful.

Let's Begin:

1) Using your paint brush, spread a layer of watery glue on your balloon. The latex will make the glue pool and slip off, but the important part is that some of it sticks.

2) Begin to layer the tissue paper on the balloon. Use more glue to hold it down. Cover the entire balloon and then cover it again.

Here's a ballon that's not quite covered with one layer yet.

 And after the second and third layers.

3) After the balloon is covered in tissue paper, it needs to dry. String a piece of yarn or a pipe cleaner through the tiny tail above the balloon knot and hang it up somewhere. I used the book shelves behind my desk. Leave it overnight or until the balloon is completely dry.

 4) When balloon is dry, hold the tail and gently pop the balloon. The deflated balloon should slip out of the opening at the top. Trim the opening to about the size of your fist, giving it smooth edges will be nice for when you're filling it. This is what the inside will look like. Isn't it pretty and shiny? Also, this is an extra pinata base that I cut open to make into a bowl. DO NOT cut your pinata open this much. Unless you want a bowl. In that case go for it.

5) Now comes the time to add the superficial elements. Decide what you want your pinata to be. If you just want a semi-round orb skip down to step 7. I needed a bull (it ended up kind of pig looking but whatever) so I crumpled up newsprint paper and taped it to the outside to give a rough shape for my snout, eyes and the heavy brow.

6) Then use more weak glue and tissue paper to cover up the newsprint

7) Fill the tiny opening with candy, confetti or whatever else is going inside. Use masking tape to completely cover the small hole, lay the strips of tape in all directions.

8) And finally, cover the tape with tissue paper and glue to give it a uniform appearance.

9) The horns on this sucker where just twisted up pieces of newsprint that I then covered in yellow tissue paper and jammed in the sides of the head. Likewise for the hook, which is just a piece of pipe cleaner poked through and taped into place.


10) Let everything dry very, very well and voila! You're very own pinata.

11) And the after. Poor guy got beat. Hard.

Flannel Friday: Mitten Mates

 The weather here has been sporadic; it's almost spring, but winter is still holding on with everything its got. So while it's still chilly enough outside for coats and gloves and hats I wanted to share one of our favorite flannel games- mitten mates.

I start with a bunch of single mittens up on the board, then I hand out their pairs to kids in the room and give everyone a good chance to see where their mate is.

The we sing the song. It's to the tune of Farmer in the Dell and goes like this 

"Each mitten has a mate

Each mitten has a mate

Can you find the pair?

You're looking here and everywhere,

Can you find the pair?"

If I know all of the names for the kids who are holding mittens I'll substitute their name into the song, inviting them to come up and put their mitten with its match. Otherwise pointing works just fine.

 

 When the song gets boring (sometimes you have to go through a few rounds to make sure everyone who wants to gets a chance to come up) I'll hand out all the mittens and start asking specific questions about the color and shapes of the mittens. So I'll ask for all the mittens with stripes on them and the four kids with these will come up.

Flannel Friday is hosted this week by Katie at Storytime Katie. Information on Flannel Friday (and the upcoming birthday celebration!) is at the official website.

Theme Thursday: Daddy's Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow

I don't know why I've never done a zoo themed story time before. This was the most fun I've had at story time in a loooooong time.

Song: Good Morning

Finger Play: I Had a Little Turtle

Flannel: Alphabet Soup- ZOO

Book: Pssst! by Adam Rex

 

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song: Open, Shut Them

Flannel: Dear Zoo

Song: Going to the Zoo from Peter, Paul And Mommy 

Song: Shake Your Sillies Out from The Singable Songs Collection (20th Anniversary Special Edition) 

Book: Class Two at the Zoo by Julia Jarman

 

Baby Bounce: Criss Cross, Line, Line

Song: Turn Around from Getting to know Myself

Make and Take Craft: Zoo Puppets

Supplies:

-construction paper

-popsicle sticks

-glue

-crayons or markers

Process: Before story time I cut out several animal shapes to match the animals that we saw in the Dear Zoo flannel. The kids then decorated the animals and glued the popsicle sticks on to make puppets.

Time: Prep took 15 minutes, the craft took 30. There was some animal theater involved.

Questions without Answers

I had a different post waiting to be written for today. One more in line with the programming (and occasional book review) aspects that I normally talk about on Tuesdays. But I've been struggling with something for most of the day and so I'm going to attempt to think it out here. Thinking things out has never been my strong suit or a big draw for most people, especially for people who aren't librarians, so if you want to skip today and come back next week (for DIY pinatas!) do so with my blessing.

For everyone else a little background.

I left work early yesterday, I'm doing outreach Wednesday morning and God forbid I work more than 40 hours a week. And when I got to work this morning I had an incident report on my desk and an e-mail from my co-worker detailing an almost fight that occurred late last night in the children's room. We've had a problem with bullying lately, one girl in particular was getting picked on in Teen Space and so we were letting her use the computers in the children's room, but now the older kids in our room have started picking on her as well.

You read stories about kids who have been bullied and you wonder where the adults are. And why they would let something like this continue to happen. It's not that hard to stick up for the underdog. It's the right thing to do. It's the only thing to do. One of my greatest fears is that someday I'll be one of those adults that everyone wonders about. How could she be so blind or so intentionally passive?

Because.

My sympathies, or at least my likes, lie with the bullies. I like those kids. They are smart and tough and clever. They are interesting and engaging. They make me laugh. Most of the time. I don't approve of their behavior and when I'm there I try to shut it down as soon as I see it start to emerge. I try to engage them in discussions about why they pick on her and why it isn't the right thing to do. I do try. I just don't know if I'm trying in the right way. Or if I'm trying hard enough.

Because.

 I do not have a lot of patience for the girl. She is needy in a way that I find intentional and manipulative and she instigates things with her bullies about half the time that I see things about to go down. She's just outmatched- physically and mentally- and can't stop what she has started. I don't think that moving her to the children's room was the right solution; I just think it makes her even more different from the other kids and makes her a bigger target. But I don't know what the correct solution was. I don't know if there is one, but I think there's probably a better one than what we've come up with and I want to know what it is.

There are other factors here too, of course. My co-worker (Hi Ms. E) and I have different approaches on how to handle problems and potential problems in the children's room and both of our philosophies differ greatly from those of our manager and security guard who aren't in the room to see what's happening. We try to keep things as consistent as possible but a lot of the time I feel like I end up playing the bad cop. Which is not something I mind in and of itself. I know I'm not bad. I have standards and I try to enforce them as consistently as possible and I am much more vocal about nipping things that I see as problems in the bud. And once kids realize that I do this all the time and with everyone, they're usually on board. The problem arises when the kids see that the disciplinarian is gone and feel like they can act out. And I read the report. I think it would have happened even if I was there and I probably would have handled it almost exactly like Ms. E did. But people who weren't there wonder out loud, which I don't think is helpful. And I wonder to myself, which I also don't think is helpful. But still I do.

And in all of this I keep coming back around to the bullies. The ones I like. Because they're... not victims obviously, but they're caught up in the same cycle as the girl. And I just want to make them understand what took me years to figure out in my own life. I want to say to them "Someday you're going to want something. To get a job, to go to college, to move to a different part of town or to a different town entirely. And when you do want something, it will be so much easier to get what you want if you know how to talk to people. If you make them want to give you what you want. And so I don't care if you don't like someone, you don't have to like everyone, but I want you to start practicing. I want you to start practicing not telling people that you don't like them. I want you to start practicing not taking the bait when someone says something to you. I want you to practice apologizing when you offend someone. Not because you think you did something wrong, but because you offended them and that should be enough to make you stop and consider if what you said or did was hurtful."

So these are the things I've been thinking about today; through making templates for summer reading programs, through my bike ride home, through washing the dishes and through my phone call with my dad. I told him that I struggle every single day with not caring enough and caring too much. I'm not naive (regardless of what my manager thinks) and I don't think I have white guilt (again regardless of what my manager thinks) and I definitely don't have a savior complex. But there has to be something I can do, otherwise nothing anywhere would ever change.

I guess I didn't really ask any questions. And I certainly don't have any answers. I don't even necessarily want advice. I want a dialogue.

Theme Thursday: Me and My Shadow

It's hard to find enough good books for a story time on Groundhog's Day. But expand your theme to shadows and silhouettes and the ideas start rolling in.

Song: Good Morning Dear Earth

Flannel: Alphabet Soup- SHADOW

Song: Open, Shut Them

Book: The Foggy, Foggy Forest by Nick Sharrat


 Song: Shake Your Sillies Out from The Singable Songs Collection (20th Anniversary Special Edition)

Song: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Flannel: Groundhog's Shadow 

Book: My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson


 Baby Bounce: Criss Cross, Line, Line

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song: Turn Around from Getting to know Myself


Make and Take: Shadow Play

Supplies:
-construction paper
-white paper
-black paper
-scissors
-glue sticks
-crayons

Process: Before story time I cut out 5 shapes (tow truck, train, cat, dog, and elephant these were also the shadows that the groundhog saw in my version of Groundhog's Shadow) in both black and white. I glued the black "shadow" piece to a colorful piece of construction paper. After story time, the kids matched the white object piece to it's shadow piece, glued it on and decorated it.

Time: Prep took way too long. If you have accucut pieces, use those and it will go much more quickly. Craft took 15 minutes.

The Inaugural Ball

We had a lot of fun in January. One of the more special moments was being so close to the nation's capital as everyone around us celebrated the second inauguration of Barack Obama. All the decorations and grandstands, parties and parades; it was way too cool. So of course we threw our own ball.

The Library Inaugural Ball had a very strict dress code- come as you are- and featured such exciting activities as Obama-rama Trivia, Patriotic plate and cookie decorating, parade shakers (leftover from out toddler story time that morning) and birthday cards for Michelle Obama (whose birthday just so happened to coincide with our party).

Take a look through our pictures and tell me that anyone holding their cell phone camera up to get a picture of the Obama's dancing at the official ball had a better time. I dare you.

Flannel Friday: A King Lives In a Castle

I really love Mary Ann Hoberman's A House Is a House for Me. I spent hours with that book when I was a kid, going through every single page and always finding something new in Betty Fraser's incredible illustrations and Hoberman's deceptively simple text. But as much as I love it, it's not a great story time book. It's too long for my crowd and the illustrations that I love get lost when viewed from a  distance. Still, I couldn't do a house themed story time without some nod to this favorite so what follows is my flannel homage.

A King lives in a castle

A ghost in a haunted house 

 And this little burrow deep in the ground

Is the perfect place for a mouse

 In the city people live in apartments

 

A bird makes his nest out of yarn

And all sorts of animals like cows and horses

Make their home in a barn

 

A hermit crab stays in his shell

An owl lives up in a tree

And a house, this very pink house,

Is the perfect place for me!

 

 This flannel set is also the champion of reusing previously made pieces.

The mouse and the pink house are from Little Mouse

The cow is from I Had a Rooster

The horse is from Book! Book! Book!

The owl is from Summer Night/Spooky Night

The tree is from Fall is Not Easy

Flannel Friday is being hosted this week by Anne at So Tomorrow. More information on Flannel Friday, including how you can get involved, can be found at the official website.