Innovative Outreach Ideas

Image Credit

Ok everybody, we just experienced a Twitterstorm of ideas!

Katie, our friend over at Secrets & Sharing Soda AND Storytime Secrets tweeted about her need for two great innovative outreach ideas that she can implement before September. Now, concerns about the feasibility of this expectation aside, plenty of tweeps jumped in with great ideas and Mel--ever thinking Mel--noted that someone should grab these ideas from the ether and jot them down for everyone's benefit.

So here we are with round one. Keep an eye on Katie's blog for more ideas and some follow-up on what she ends up doing!

Mary, of Miss Mary Liberry fame (who happens to BE an outreach librarian) suggested:
--Teen outreach at a comic book store--maybe during Free Comic Book Day (May 5th 2012), Teen Read Week (Oct. 14-20, 2012) or Graphic Novel Week (Not sure when/what this one is).
--Outreach to senior citizens: Senior St., where librarian reads to seniors at nursing home
--Afterschool programs outreach: Boys and Girls club, etc. where librarian provides activities, crafts etc.
--Outreach to children in trailer parks, homeless shelters, community centers

Seth (Voices Inside my Headphones) suggests some online outreach--maybe a bookclub or something along those lines.

Laura (Bib-Laura-Graphy) suggests looking into local shelters for family/domestic violence, or a local Children's Hospital (or even children's department of general hospital).

Mel (Mel's Desk) had the idea to look at the library's goals and try to develop a 'sister program' with something adult services is doing. She also suggested looking into churches that offer temporary housing,
and WIC offices as possible outreach locations.

Lisa (Library Lady) suggests in-home daycare providers and public parks as possible outreach destinations.

And finally, a few ideas from yours truly:
--First Job Program (aimed at highschoolers) on getting (and keeping!) a very first job (to make this outreach instead of in-house, you could partner with local tech school or Optimists club or maybe even Chamber of Commerce for your community!
--Farmer's Market booth to promote library services/educate people about fresh/local food
--Hospital's birth education classes/groups or MOPS--targeting parent education rather than kids.
--Coordinate some kind of program for senior citizens/nursing home residents. "Ray of Sunshine" visits from families with young children to elderly folks, or kids reading to seniors.

So many great ideas! 

Cabin Fever Display

This would have been ever so much more timely a month ago, but it was very successful so I'll still share it.
I planned a party for the release of Cabin Fever, book six in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.


As a lead up, I put together a display of 40+ read alikes with an ad for the party.




It was a pretty nice display, and since it is right in front of the main doors to the library it got a lot of attention. It was really nice for staff too, since they could direct patrons to the display if (IF! HA!) all of our copies of Cabin Fever were checked out.

posted from Bloggeroid

Flannel Friday--Holiday Extravaganza!

Today I bring you felt finger puppets!

The happy trio

The naughty little elf

Rudolph

Santa

The finger puppets are made from simple shapes cut in felt, layered together and stitched. They could just as easily be glued if you're not a sewer. But if you want to try hand sewing, nothing is more forgiving or fun to work with than felt.

Here's what I do with Santa. I love this simple fingerplay, and so do kids. Especially when they don't know that I have a finger puppet on!

Here Is The Chimney
Here is the chimney(Make fist, enclose thumb)
Here is the top.(Palm of hand on top of fist)
Open the lid.(Remove hand quickly)
And out Santa will pop.(Pop up thumb)

Here's what I do with Elf. I do this song all year, it's one of my favorites and makes the kids giggle and giggle when I pop the Elf out from behind my back and look at him suspiciously before he jumps to the next verse location (My head!)

There's  a Little Elf
Sung to: "If You're Happy & You Know It"

There's a little elf that's sitting on my nose, Uh Oh!
There's a little elf that's sitting on my nose, Uh Oh!
I don’t know what to say, and then he runs away

Now there's no little elf on my nose.

There's a little elf that's sitting on my knee,
There's a little elf that's sitting on my knee.
I Don’t know what to say, and then he runs away

Now there's no little elf on my knee.

Clip art for "Call Rudolph"

Call Rudolph
Eight little reindeer pulling Santa's sled
One fell down and bumped his head.
The elves called Santa and Santa said,
"Can seven little reindeer pull my sled?"
7…6…5…4…3…2…
One little reindeer pulling Santa's sled;
He fell down and bumped his head.
The elves called Santa and Santa said,
"Call Rudolph!"

I ended up not enjoying this one when I did it before.  It was TOO LONG, and the joke at the end just really fell flat so I'll be on the lookout for other rhymes to use my Rudolph puppet.

Our round-up is hosted internationally this week, by Library Quine over in Scotland!

posted from Bloggeroid

On Display--Dr. Seuss and Seussical the Musical

Our local community theater is staging a production of Seussical the Muscial opening the first week of November, so I put together a display using all the books that are part of the musical. 



Since there aren't a ton of books, I made liberal use of the color copier. I photocopied the cover of each title(after cleaning and fixing them all up--eesh) and mounted them on blue construction paper. That way if the books get checked out the display will still look full and attractive.




I use Microsoft Publisher to make my signs. The font is Grinched, a free font that I downloaded--I LOVE it. I spent some time on the Dr. Seuss website Seussville, and printed some characters from the different activity sheets available there.



And, in a last minute bright idea, I whipped up a little game! We have a mural that includes the cat in the hat, and a spooky Halloween cat up right now, so kids may or may not include those in their 'ten' that they find. I actually put out nine paper cats around the library so it won't be too hard of a challenge.




Took me ten minutes tops to print, cut-out, and tape these up around the library!

posted from Bloggeroid

(Inspired by) Flannel Friday--Five Creepy Monsters

A few weeks ago when I hosted the Flannel Friday roundup I fell head over heels in love with Cate's creepy monsters. I NEVER sing 'Five Little Monkeys on the Bed" in ST--I dunno why, just bored by it, I guess? But, monsters jumping on the bed?! I'll use those adorable little guys all year. I didn't even really try to branch out, Cate's monsters were sooooo cute. So my "inspired by" is more like direct imitation.



I did add a Mama Monster. And I chose different colors/decorations for my lil' creepers.





I chose different belly shapes so we will have more options for things to discuss in ST--shapes, colors, emotions.





The other way I will use them is with a, "Five Little Whatsits" type rhyme, such as this one:

Five little monsters sitting on the floor.
Five little monsters sitting on the floor
The [red] one said, "Let's knock on someone's door."
The [green] one said, "Let's act a little scary."
The [white] one said, "Why are we so hairy?"
The [blue] one said, "I hear a funny sound."
The [pink] one said, "There's no one else around."
Then "WHOOSH" went the wind and "EEK!" someone said.
So five little monsters ran under the bed.

If I used that rhyme, I would probably stick with using ordinal numbers instead of colors. I don't often use a, "Five Little Whatsits" rhyme, but when I do I like to use it to practice/introduce counting with ordinal numbers. "First, second, third, fourth, fifth!"




Check Mollie's Blog for this week's full round-up.

Teddy Bear Sleepover Pictures

Just had to share a few shots of the fun we had at the Teddy Bear Sleepover. Yesterday I posted what we did in storytime for this event. After storytime for the craft, each of the kids drew a picture of his/her stuffed animal on a piece of regular sized blank paper. They also filled in their Teddy's name, age, favorite color, and favorite book.

Then they said good night and tucked their teddies in.

Tucked In

After all the kids were gone, my student worker and I took pictures of the animals frolicking all around the library. We had a great time :)

Once I had all the pictures, I put together two 'scrapbook pages' with captions. One page was the same for all the animals, and the second page I customized with pictures highlighting the animal whose book it would be. I took the really large construction paper--12x18?--and folded that in half. On the front I taped the page the kids filled out with the drawings of their animals,  and on the inside I taped the two 'scrapbook' pages full of pictures. When the kids came in the next day to retrieve their friends, they got a memory book with pictures of what happened while they were away. It was a smashing success and I can't wait for the next one!

Snack Time

Ooh, the Book Drop!

Shelving Cart Races

Taking over the Library Van

Storytime--Stuffed Animal Theme for Teddy Bear Sleepover

Had my first Teddy Bear Sleepover at the library! It was amazing, and I can't wait to do another one.  For storytime we--of course--did a stuffed animal theme.

Opening song: 1 2 3, I Love the Library

We started out with Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny. It was, of course, lovely. I have to admit, I was never a huge Mo fan until he started writing Elephant and Piggie.  I mean, I liked him, but I wasn't totally on the Mo train until those two came along. And yeah, Knuffle Bunny Free made me tear up earlier this year.

Puppet: Baby Bear! It was the first time I'd used Baby Bear since last spring, so it was nice to see him. He was so shy we had to sing his wake up song twice! But he had the letter of the day tucked away in his sleeping bag--it was T! Then he started pulling out pictures of things that started with T--the kids were amazed at how many things he had in his bag. Finally, when we couldn't believe that there was anything else in there, he pulled out a tiny teddy bear of his own! Well after that we just had to read, Where's My Teddy? by Jez Alborough 

I love that book! Next I got out my big lap-sized bear puppet. My arms go inside his arms, so I can make him do motions. We sang, "I Had a Little Turtle" but changed it to "I Had a Little Teddy."

After that we did a fingerplay/action activity that I modified from the old "Five Little..." standby (I was still using the puppet)
Five Little Teddy Bears

Five little teddy bears standing side by side.

The first one said, "I’m shy, so I will hide" (hide face)

The second one said, "Put your hand up, gimme five!" (high five)

The third one said, "Give me some honey from the hive!" (rub belly)

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run" (running motion)

The fifth one said, "I’m having so much fun" (victory arms)

I wanted it to be very action-oriented so the kids would get involved.

H. M. Ehrlich's lovely little book, Louie's Goose was next on the agenda. This is a sweet little book that I really like--Rosie the goose gets loved to pieces, and mom and dad can only do so much to save her. Then Louie has to take matters into his own hands.

Then we got rid of wiggles and giggles with the Watermelon Song.
Brought everybody back together with A is for Alligator, which I learned from a colleague:
A is for Alligator, chomp chomp chomp
B is for Bounce, hop hop hop
C is for circle, round and round and round
and D is for Don't sit down/is when we all sit Down.
(We sign A, B, C, D as we do this).

Finally, we finished up by reading Emily Gravett's Monkey and Me. I just love this author, and this book in particular. The kids love joining in on the rhythmic refrain and guessing what animal the girl and her toy are impersonating.

Closing song: Storytime is Over Now.

Hand stamp!

Collection Development--Unexpected Consequences

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this little post about reading and added a reading log page to my blog. My intention was to keep better track of what I want to read, and not have 15 things checked out at once. Not that I mind having 15 things checked out at once, but with my extra-long check out period (6 weeks) and crazy busy life, I was definitely keeping things for waaaaay longer than I should. I don't want to abuse my librarian privileges, and as long as the books are sitting on my shelf not being read no one else can read them either and we lose circulation statistics. So I created that reading list in an effort to be a more responsible librarian and adult.

Well, everyone suggested very strongly that I join GoodReads, so I took the advice of my library colleagues and took the plunge.

It's been great, and I really like it. But one of the interesting things that's come of it is that it helps me be more responsible with collection development.

I have a pretty small budget. I get a lot of recommendations from blogs and articles that I read, but the main source I use for collection development is School Library Journal. My budget basically allows my to purchase 15 YA books a month. By the time I've gone through SLJ for the best of the best and added those to the blog recommended titles, I've got more than I can buy and face some tough decisions.

I'm very careful to make sure that each month I choose a good variety--considering diversity, reading levels, appeal, and genres. But I wouldn't be human if my reading interests didn't influence my decisions at times. Now that I'm using GoodReads, it's easier for me to differentiate between books I want to read and books that are good for my library. If it's something I want to read, I can just add it to my 'to read' list and forget about it. Then I can go on to make the best decision for my library.

So thank you to everyone who recommended GoodReads!  I really love that barcode scanner.

Flannel Friday--Fill up the Shopping Cart

Good morning, duckies. Today I am sharing a little ditty inspired by this post from Mollie at What Happens In Storytime. Go take a look, then I'll show you what I did.

Back? Great. I searched a bit for pictures of baskets, but didn't find anything that I really liked.  My other problem was that I wanted to print it very large, so I searched the clipart from within my Microsoft Word program and found several cute shopping carts I liked, including this one:



I used Microsoft Publisher to print the image over several sheets of paper so that it's about the size of a piece of posterboard.  I laminated it and taped magnets to the back, so that I could use it with my chalkboard/easel.

Next was the really fun part--finding all my fruit images! I mainly used the clipart in Word again, and chose all photographs of fruit so it would be consistently realistic. I made sure to include all the fruits mentioned in the Watermelon Song (our favorite!).  The fruit was all cut out, laminated, and magnetized as well.


During ST I handed out a variety of fruit, and we sang, "Pickin' up strawberries, put 'em in the basket. Pickin' up strawberries, put 'em in the cart."  Mollie did hers to the tune of, "The Paw Paw Patch" and she even sent me a link to the song, but I just couldn't pick up on the tune. We sang it more or less to the tune of, "Shortnin' Bread" (Mama's little baby loves shortnin, shortnin. Mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread.)


We talked about the differences and similarities between the different fruits, and of course the kids LOVE to come up and put things on the board.  Normally I have too many kids to let them put things on the board, so I love this one because I have so much fruit everyone can play.

Check Andrea’s Roving Fiddlehead Kidlit blog for the Flannel Friday roundup later today. If you want to participate, leave Andrea a comment (and a link to your post). If you have a great flannel you'd like to share but can't get it posted by the end of the day today, just save it for next week's roundup!  And if you don't have a blog email one of us who does and we'll get you included.

posted from Bloggeroid

Batty Batty Batty Bat

Halloween is coming! But uh oh, what's that?



Eek! It's a bat.





There seem to be a lot of them...








We recently changed a policy at the library, which I knew would be hard on kids who don't have money or involved parents. So in anticipation of this, I offered the kids a way to 'work' for me.  Since Halloween is coming, I had them cut out some decorations. I LOVE how floppy and kind of realistic the bats turned out!

The bats are made using this clipart. I made it as large as I could on a regular 8.5x11 piece of paper and printed a template on cardstock for them to trace onto construction paper and cut out.

I used this Jack-o-Lantern and again made a cardstock template. I cut out the eyes and mouth using an X-acto knife so they could just color in those features like a stencil.

When I first started here, I spent a day with the ladder, stringing fishing line from the ceiling tiles and tying paper clips to the ends. I leave them up all the time, and just paperclip new decorations on according to the season. It's so easy! When they're empty, they're practically invisible.

The best thing is that I have this song in my head all the time now.

 

posted from Bloggeroid

Dance Storytime

This one was a bit of a stretch for me, but I'm so glad I pushed myself because we had a blast!

We started by reading If You're Happy and You Know It by Jane Cabrera, which I actually sang. Only the second time I've done that. You would seriously never know it if you attended my ST, but if you had told me five years ago that I would regularly sing in front of people I would have started to cry.

Anyway, love this book and we had a great time with it.

Next I brought out the tub of rhythm instruments that's been mocking me for a couple years now.  It was great! and NOISY! The kids listened to me really well, and we just did different things like fast, slow, quiet loud, up high, down low, etc.

After I collected all the instruments we did one of my favorite fingerplays, Five Fat Peas

Five fat peas in a peapod pressed (crouch, hold up fist)
One grew, two grew, and so did all the rest (pop fingers up)
They grew and grew and grew, and they did not stop (both arms up, slowly stand as you 'grow')
Until one day, the pod went POP! (clap!)

Then we moved into I Can Jump Jump Jump--a great action activity that really gets the wiggles out.

I can jump jump jump
I can hop hop hop (we do one foot)
I can clap clap clap
and I can stomp stomp stomp
I can shake my head yes
I can shake my head no
I can bend my knees a little bit
and do it again for show/sit down slow

The second book that we read was Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont. I absolutely adore this one, and I really hammed up the refrain, "Did you hear what Mama told you? Did you hear what Papa said? It's naptime little baby so you BETTER STAY IN BED!" And the kids all joined in.

And what dancing storytime could leave out my beloved Watermelon Song? Not this one.

Fingerplay: Three Bubbles
A teeny tiny bubble
A medium sized bubble
a GREAT BIG bubble I see
Let's count them
Are you ready?
One...two...three...POP!

Fingerplay: My Hands
My hands upon my head I'll place
On my shoulders
By my face
At my waist
and by my side
and then behind me they will hide
Then clap clap clap
and 1, 2, 3
I'll show how quiet they can be

Because I planned so many extension activities we only ended up reading three books, and the final one was Dancing Feet by Lindsey Craig. I associated each animal with an action, so this one was boisterous too!

And finally, I did something I've never done before, which was use recorded music in storytime.  I handed out the dancing scarves and played sections of four different pieces of classical music. I told the kids to listen to how the music made them feel and how it made them want to move.

I used the cd, "Beethoven's Wig 2" and chose four very different pieces of music--Light Cavalry Overture by Suppe, In the Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg, Humoresque by Dvorak, and the Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss.

Then we played the opposite game with the scarves, sang our closing song, did hand stamps, and moved on to craft.

For the craft, we made dancing wands using craft sticks. The taped a (precut) star onto the craft stick, colored it and taped ribbon and crepe paper on to twirl and swirl. I played music so they could try them out, and that was all.

Flannel Friday Roundup 10/7

Welcome to Flannel Friday!

Everybody's welcome to join in!  Have one to add? I will, of course, edit you in if you leave me a comment.

Edited to add: At this point, if you still have an entry, you'd do better to save it for this coming Friday so more people to see it--Andrea will be hosting. Thanks everyone!

Kendra has a Special Needs friendly version of the book Deep Blue Sea

Mollie gives us a cute little rhyme great for night/sleep/space storytimes, Four Little Stars

Nicole anticipates colder weather (not yet, noooooo!) with Five Little Snowmen

Tracey contributes a totally cute animal clipart version of The Great Big Enormous Turnip

Mel is waaaaay too hard on herself for not coming up with something new, and shares her version of the book Fall is Not Easy

Katie shares cute little pumpkins and a couple of different ways to use them--Five Little Pumpkins

Mary brings us not one but TWO boards this week, an adorable clip art version of the book Mortimer and  flannel props for the song Mary Wore Her Red Dress (argh, Twitter's hashtags not searching correctly, Mortimer was from a few weeks ago. It's still super cute though).

Anne tries out a new material for flannelboards and shares several stories made with--Milk filters!

Sarah shares a super fun activity--Making Cookies

Alison brings us an idea for the every popular dinosaur theme--Paleontologist Paleontologist What Do You See?

Andrea shares some cute little penguins (bonus template link!) for the story Pippa's Penguins

Library Quine adds her take on the book, Go Away Big Green Monster--a book I'm looking forward to using again this Halloween as it's a favorite of mine.

Our second Emberley book of the day comes from Recipes for Reading, another title I love Bye Bye Big Bad Bullybug

Cate has created some adorable yeti's for a Halloween version of an old standby, Five Creepy Monsters (Jumping on the Bed)

With another cute little rhyme perfect for Halloween, Linda shares her One Little Ghost flannel

One more entry--perfect for fall--from Sarah I Like Apples

I thought I was going to sit this week out and only host, but found one in my files I hadn't shared yet, Five Little Astronauts

Bonus video(!) entry from the Library Lady showing us her version of The Green Grass Grows All Around

Katie doesn't have a flannel to contribute this week, but she gives us a sneak peek at how she stays organized and the supplies she uses to make her flannel boards

Click the icon on the side of my blog to go to the Flannel Friday Pinterest account. If you'd like your own badge, go to Mel's page to get the code (on the right hand side of the page). Archived Flannel Friday roundups are stored on Anne's blog, along with more information on what's going on here if you're new or curious.

Enjoy!

Flannel Friday--Five Little Astronauts

A quickie from the ST files. I whipped this clipart baby up one morning juuust before storytime. Colored the astronauts with colored pencil and found some felt stars for ambiance.
Here's the rhyme, which I can't credit at all *hangs head in shame*

5 little astronauts floating in space,

Looking at the stars with a smile on their face.

When along came a space ship to beam one out and the 4 little astronauts gave a big shout "HEY"

posted from Bloggeroid

No Flannel Friday--Old MacDonald Had a Farm

I got this idea from the amazing puppeteers at Neenah Public Library during the 2009 WLA conference. Take a box (B&T boxes are so great since they have a flat bottom). Paint it to look like a barn door.  Don't worry, you don't even have to do that good of a job--the kids won't care.

Then cut the upper part of the door so that it opens like so:




Now when you sing Old Mac you POP the puppets through the door. "Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a...COW!!!"




Sometimes I put in a big pause and really punch the animals through. Half the kids jump, and then they laugh and laugh. I always tell them when we've seen all the animal friends in the barn, but maybe if we all sing nice and loud one of them will come back for an encore. Usually it's cow who comes back, and he moos with gusto before saying goodbye to the kids.

I use this once a month or so regardless of my theme, but sometimes I'll put in a weird animal who relates to the theme or something to surprise the kids--like at Halloween the sheep 'dressed up' as a ghost when he popped out.

So much fun and easy to do!

posted from Bloggeroid

Farm Storytime

Today was my first regular storytime since I started this blog. I can barely believe it. I did storytime over the summer, but they were kind of 'greatest hits' storytimes thrown together in a rush.  I would normally have started fall storytime a few weeks ago, but our staffing changes took up all my time. But we're back in business now!

I usually do 1-3 outreach storytimes a week, plus regular storytime Wednesdays at 10:30.  Woe betide any attempts to offer storytime at other days/times in this community!

I will be writing up a few posts on my storytime process later, but for now here's what we did this week:

Opening Song: 1,2,3, I Love the Library (lyrics I wrote to tune I learned as a child).

Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming

I read this one for three of my four sessions and it was a huge hit every time. I am trying to be better about saying the titles of the books, and I defined 'banter' for them. When we looked at the title page most of them thought the goose was a duck so we talked about geese and how they have long necks. The kids LOVED spotting the Goose on every page--more than saying the animal noises with me.

Song: Old MacDonald (with puppets and barn prop) This is one of my most popular storytime activities, and it deserves its own post--coming soon.

Action Activity: I can Jump Jump Jump. It was rainy here this week, so for the daycares and school groups we did this a few times and varied speed to really get those wiggles out (the source is here, but I've adapted it--we stomp stomp stomp and at the end do it again for show. Repeat all, then sit down slow).

Book: Stuck in the Mud by Jan Clarke or Hungry Hen by Richard Waring

 Hungry Hen was a big hit with my my school and daycare groups, but I opted out of reading it for regular storytime. The group skewed young and quiet and I didn't think they'd appreciate the twist at the end. Stuck in the Mud is fun--we all chimed in (more or less) on the refrain he/she pushed and pulled again and again.

Song: There's a Little Chicken (To the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know it"). I do this song with whatever little stuffed animal or fingerpuppet fits my theme or transition best. It's a good way to build body part vocabulary. "There's a little chicken sitting on my...nose! OH NO! I don't know what to say and then he runs away. Now there's no little chicken on my nose." After each verse I have the little chicken pop out from behind my back and pretend that I'm nervous about where he'll go next, which makes the kids laugh and join in. 

Fingerplay: Here is a Cup. I learned this one from last year's Collaborative Summer Reading Program manual, and it's a new favorite.

"Here is a cup (cup hand) and here is a cup (other hand)

and here is a pot of tea (fist with index finger out for spout)

Pour a cup, and pour a cup (you got this).

And have a sip with me"

We start slow and get very fast, ending with a nice looooong drink of tea and rubbing of the belly--YUM!

Book: Clip Clop by Nicola Smee or Moo, Moo, Brown Cow! Have you Any Milk? by Phillis Gershator.

Flannel Story: Make a Pig. I LOVE this flannel. So much.  It's so much fun--the kids just roll with laughter.

  

Fingerplay: My Hands. The version I use is closest to this one here.

We read one more book--one of the ones I didn't choose above. For each group I decide on the fly depending on how they're reacting and what I'd like to read.  My back up books that I didn't use at all were Margaret Wise Brown's Big Red Barn and Lucy Cousin's Maisy's Morning on the Farm.

Closing Song: Storytime is Over Now (Mary had a Little Lamb).

Hand Stamps (There would be riots if I forgot this).

Craft: I printed a b&w clip art barn onto legal sized paper and there were six animals for the kids to color and glue (precut by my student worker). Easy!

Flannel Friday--How do I put it on?

So, I jettisoned my to-do list and made a flannel today. It felt good. I've really missed actually working on things for storytime.  The simple yet delightful, "How Do I Put It On?" by Shigeo Watanabe just begged me to turn it into felt.

Little Bear photographed really dark--sorry!

First I looked at the illustrations in the book, and did a Google image search for bears to figure out how I wanted him to look.  I knew he'd need long legs and arms to put the cloths on.  Then I did a small sketch (on the green paper) to test out some ideas.  Once I had it how I wanted it, I sketched him onto a clean sheet.  then I lightly outlined the clothes shapes so that they would be the right size. 

All my felt-making tools.

Next I enlarged my drawing on the photocopier so it would be better for group viewing, and made two copies (one for the bear shape, and one for the clothes).





Then I used my paper scissors (the orange ones) to cut out my pattern for just the bear. I taped that to the felt and then cut the felt with my cloth scissors.  Taping the pattern on works wonderfully--I just cut through the tape.  Paper dulls scissors very quickly, and cutting cloth with dull scissors is a nightmare, so I'm very careful to use different pairs for different materials.




I did the same thing for the clothes, and then I added details with markers using the dabbing approach rather than a dragging/writing motion.

Can't turn it without starting over.

I gave him a Green Bay Packer shirt because I know my audience, and it will delight many of the little boys in my storytimes.  I printed the logo on paper and glued it on.





I'd be happy to share my template if anyone wanted it. 

posted from Bloggeroid