snowflake winter wonderlibraryland

Coming back from the winter holidays can be soooooo drab. All of the holiday celebrations are over and the decorations are put away. We miss the glitter so we found the best way to combat the blues is with more blue- and white. As we roll out winter book displays we read about Wilson Bentley the snowflake man and celebrate the beauty of his snowflake photography. There are so many great winter picture books that each year we read a different one to pique interest in snowflakes, but a favorite is Just One Flake. This snow and sweaters choice slide is a great place to start out snowflake studies, too. Then we get to snowflake making!

Each student K-5 creates a flake and I try to hang every single one! We cover how to fold and cut so that the snowflakes are hexagonal just like snowflakes in nature. For kinder, coffee filters are easier to cut, they are also fun to color using markers and then spritz with water for a melting effect. The best part of this year’s snowflakes is that when we hung them all up, I added some small animal pictures in between the flakes to create a huge I spy display. Kids loved trying to find all of the hidden objects! The group in the below pic is recording the number of each item they spotted!

easy color and cut- make a standing santa

We are making holiday cards and crafts this week in our makerspace. I doodled a santa and more for students to cut out and glue to toliet paper rolls (we ran out really fast). Lots of versions emerged with some students using plaid wrapping paper (recycled) instead of solid red paper. I challenged them to recycle as much as possible for this craft. I printed the image below for them to color, cut and glue. I also invited them to doodle their own if they preferred. Print the image below if you need a handy busy hands paper activity, Happy crafting!

print and glue to toliet paper rolls for santa craft

superhero reading and comic celebrations

For this year’s COMIC CON, our 5th graders celebrated the genre with reading, making and movie watching. Check out some images of the celebration below, and view our Superhero bitmoji room used during a computer lab rotation. Our comic con scheduling including rotating students through 6 areas of the library and alternate outside stations. This was a little hurried but everyone was busy and never bored!

Stations included superhero/monster cookie making, vintage movie clips (original Batman costumes were commented upon), Star Wars paperbag puppets, sidewalk chalk, and computer lab activities. Students did have time for flashlight reading in the Batcave.