Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

This is my FAVORITE! If Dr. Seuss were still alive today he would have turned 110 years old on Sunday, and been able to see his works all over the world, all over the internet, and still loved by children EVERYWHERE! So, for our 2nd year in a row we decided to celebrate Dr. Seuss with a party complete with Seussically silly snacks, crafts, and lots of laughter. If you're looking for some craft or food ideas, these were a hit (also we try and cleverly keep both our food and crafts for parties relatively inexpensive, and these were both!): IF I RAN THE CIRCUS peanuts (aka circus peanuts) HOP on POPcorn (aka cheesy popcorn) IF I RAN THE ZOO animals (aka animal crackers) FISH in the POT crackers (aka goldfish crackers) BIPPOLO SEEDS (aka nerds( Craft 1: Die cut door knob hangers which we turned Seussically silly with messages and Seuss characters (didn't have much time to finish this sample, so beg your pardon for it's sloppiness) Ou...

 We just started an after school Lego program last week and though we had a small turn-out for the first Lego program (7), everyone had a blast! Watching the kids having fun with the Legos made me think of my own childhood. A childhood that I've always been so grateful for, parents who didn't let us watch much TV, but rather sent us outdoors, encouraged us to read, or play games with one another: Monopoly, SORRY! War, Poker, Risk, UNO; creating with Construx, Legos, and our Erector Sets; days spent playing Hide n' Seek, mothball wars in our basement, or afternoons spent in our garage helping our father keep our car running. I was the youngest of four and the tag-along, tomboy sister, especially tagging along after my brothers, and though we four kids fought and played and fought some more, I'm so thankful for them and the friendships and support we provide for each other as adults. Today I'm thinking of my brother A3 on his 35th and sending so much love his...

This week we have two days of making Gingerbread Houses with the families, something I've been both eagerly anticipating/dreading it in that way others who have done this program can appreciate--excited for the kids, while also dreading the clean up  (the icing ground into the carpet, candy strewn everywhere), and also living in fear that we're going to run out of something important like icing or graham crackers. I DID forget the heavy duty plates and plastic knives, but fortunately there is a dollar store nearby, and I realized my error a half an hour before the program started. The program ran smoothly and we had 36 people show up to day 1 (day 2 is today); the only major mess up was when I was going to take a photo of one of the kids with their finished house for our Facebook page and my iPhone slid out of my fresh-wipe-slippery hand and went flying at the gingerbread house--through it, in fact! I DEMOLISHED his house!! There were audible gasps from all of the kids and my...

Last week's storytimes found us reading books about farms (you know I love farms!). In the midst of one of our books, which had something to do with pigs, a 4 year old interrupted me to ask, "Did you know that Mama Preying Mantises bite the heads off the Daddy Preying Mantises?" It's funny, but I literally looked down at the book in my hands, as if I missed something, reading on auto pilot or something. Once I collected myself I said that I did know that and asked where she had learned that (making sure to leave out the part about how it happens after they mate). "Oh, we heard about it in a book." I got such a kick out of that kid and her comment and wondered all day what her parents read to her. Working with kids can be so funny sometimes. Also, for some reason, her comment made me think of this .

A couple weeks ago my little friends (1st-5th grades) and I met to learn about Ancient Egypt. After identifying Egypt on the map and talking about Ancient Egypt: "mummies, pyramids, sphynx's, oh my!" we began the rather messy task of making mummies. Making mummies out of $1 store Barbies--said Barbies which caused me to look like a total creep-o with some kind of fetish when I went into the store and bought 19 of them. (You can never have enough cheap Barbies when you work with children). I made a flour and water paste for the kids and after passing out paste, barbies, and piles of old t-shirts-turned-shredded-strips-of-fabric, we began. As the kids wrapped their barbies from head to toe I explained the FASCINATING steps in which bodies were mummified. See here (this is a great resource!) The kids loved the gross details of it; brains being ripped out of noses with long, sharp hooks and the like. Ancient Egypt is a topic that I have never found boring. And it seemed too ...