Inspired by a project in Jean Van't Hul's book "The Artful Parent: Simple Ways to Fill Your Family's Life with Art and Creativity,"Â children created colorful suncatchers with natural materials, clear contact paper and paper plates.
This is a simple and creative project for children and adults to complete together. When offered in person at the library, participants visited the library's garden to pick flowers, leaves and other natural items to use in their project.Â
I wanted to involve the community in a craft that would minister to others. Knitting and crocheting came to mind, but we would need a small and simple project for beginners.
I decided on a baby blanket for stillborn babies. With this project, patrons could make as large or as small a blanket as they wanted, and families of still born babies would receive something warm and soft to wrap around their babies.
Wonder Time is an engaging program that encourages curiosity and self-expression. Children discover that learning is fun!
Each Tuesday from 4 to 6 p.m., kids have an opportunity to “wonder” about something. The program is geared toward (but not limited to) children ages 6 to 14.
Beginning Street Art was an active companion program to Banksy Booked @KHPCL, the theme for a number of active and passive programs to coincide with a six-week exhibit of Banksy’s "Haight Street Rat" street art.
Builder’s Club: Tween Edition is a hands-on, collaborative STEAM program for children ages 9 to 14. During each session, a library facilitator introduces a new topic for tweens to explore and practice.
Helping Hands is an arts and crafts program that meets the needs of two communities — older adults and homeless populations — at the same time. Older adult participants socialize at the library while they make sleeping mats from upcycled plastic bags. The mats are then given to nearby homeless populations.Â
Fans of Sherlock Holmes, particularly those that love the BBC "Sherlock" series, were invited to enjoy an author Q&A, crafts and an escape room. Texas author Alan J. Porter presented his experiences writing Sherlock Holmes stories, then patrons participated in activities. Crafts included Perler bead character magnets, adult coloring, and decorating mugs and 221B Baker Street notebooks.
The holidays always bring a lot of traffic to our libraries, and December 2016 was no exception. We offered Light Up The Holidays: Stories and Crafts as a children's program in all of our eight branches and even one of our Bookmobile stops. The program covered four different holidays that fell during the same week last year.
Participants were given a package of pressed flowers and allowed to decorate frames, bookmarks and gift tags for Mother's Day or for fun.
For the past three years the Lakeville Public Library has hosted a Noon Year’s Eve celebration on Dec. 31. We make party hats, dance, have photo booths and do a countdown to noon. The festivities end with a huge pizza party.
This is one of our largest and costliest events of the year; last year's party attracted more than 200 guests.
In the spirit of the Kentucky Derby and the Royal Coronation, Make a Fascinator is a craft program where attendees learn how to create a simple (yet fancy!) fascinator hat.
Fans of "The Mysterious Benedict Society" (MBS) book series participate in an adventure featuring secret codes, puzzles and riddles. Participants learn Morse Code and how to make decoder rings and hand-made marshmallow shooters.
It’s fair to say that COVID made for a meaningful — and very steep — learning experience for librarians. We became adept at virtual programs, no-touch lending, adopting social distancing, health and safety rules and much, much more.
The Sheep to Sweater Series featured five different programs surrounding fiber arts and the process of making wool yarn.
Books and Baking is a pre-recorded read-aloud program followed by hands-on learning (using a take-and-make kit) in attendees' home kitchens. The goal is for families to participate in everyday STEM, tied in with literacy, to learn the science behind baking.Â
Public and tribal libraries are invited to apply for NASA@ My Library, a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) education initiative that will increase and enhance STEAM learning opportunities for library patrons throughout the nation, including geographic areas and populations currently underrepresented in STEAM education.
Maker Monday is a recurring program at my library. On the last Monday of the month, we host 15 to 20 patrons to make something new in our Maker Space. Popular programs, like vision boards and book wreaths, we repeat multiple times based on patron demand. This class fills up each time we offer it, plus a substantial waitlist.
For this particular craft, we created book wreaths using withdrawn library materials. While some patrons were nervous to tear apart books, many enjoyed upcycling materials.
As librarians, we are passionate advocates for makerspace programming. We share with teachers and students how makerspaces engage and develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. Our school library has supported many makerspace programming events, from Makerspace Monday to our monthly Makerspace challenge.
Summer is just around the corner. While we might be looking forward to the warmth, fear not — we'll be clamoring for some air-conditioned activities soon enough. Keep your out-of-school teens (and everyone else) busy with these fun and easy DIY activities.
Our DIY Squishies program allowed our teens to be producers as well as consumers as they made/designed their own toys.
