Virtual Program: Food Art for Kids

 Food Art for Kids was a virtual program I was really excited about doing, but it definitely took the most work and prep out of all the virtual programs thus far. It was a challenge and out of my element, but I think it came together well and it's always good to challenge ourselves as librarians and educators. 

Since there were so many great ideas to choose from on what food art to make, I knew I wanted to make sure I included really easy options and more difficult ones so this could be for kids of all ages and for parents who wanted to give it a try. I also wanted to narrow it down to a theme and came up with the idea of food based on children's books. This theme made the program so much fun to show. 

There are so many examples online and some really great holiday ideas too. 

I started off explaining a little bit about food art and how you can play around with food shapes, get your kids to eat healthy foods, and make a nice surprise for snacks and parties. 

The books I used to base around my food art were The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, The Cat in the Hat, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and Rainbow Fish. All classics and all fun to use as inspiration to make some food art. 

Since it is around Halloween, I also added a simple pumpkin food art craft that uses a clementine and celery. 

This was a virtual program that allowed me to try something I would have avoided doing for an in-person program because it involves food and I wouldn't want to worry about food allergies and germs when food is involved. 

Toddler Art: Numbers

This month's Toddler Art theme was numbers. We read Race CarCount by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and then we did some painting and gluing.

For our first craft, we did some number dot painting with caterpillars and snowmen using black and green paint. The parents helped their child count while they were having fun with paint and using their fine motor skills.

Our second craft was counting cars to go along with our book. Each child had to glue on a different color car to the big number five on their paper. The kids really enjoyed this craft and I found out they are a big fan of cars, inspiring a possible car program for the future.

At the end of craft time, we had a little playtime.

Other Book:

Pop-Up Peekaboo! Numbers

Family Storytime: Butterflies

I am always surprised when I get to this theme that I'm not so wowed by the picture books on butterflies. Either the story is interesting, but too long for little ones to sit to, or they are lacking a good story to it if they are short. I do have my favorites for this theme, but I'm really looking for some new good ones to add to my list.

The books we read were Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert, Don't Worry Bear by Greg Foley, and Kitten's Big Adventure by Mie Araki. The group enjoyed counting the butterflies in Ehlert's book and liked how their was a kitten in Araki's book. 

I told the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar using flannelboard pieces and they all helped me put the food pieces onto the board. 

We also counted some colorful butterflies on the flannel board and went over each of their colors. 

For our craft, we made butterflies out of paper plates. They all turned out very pretty, but we needed to staple some of the wings together because the paper plates wouldn't stick too well to the the construction paper. 

Let's flutter into spring!