January 2017 Story Hour: Animals in Winter

I'm always looking for themes for story hour. Sometimes I find a really awesome theme, but can't find books to go with it. Other times, I find the perfect book(s), but can't find or create a craft to go along. That was my problem with Animals in Winter. The books I picked were

• Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams
• One Snowy Rescue by Christina M. Butler
• The Mitten by Jan Brett

I love all these  books. They are perfect for a non-Christmas themed Winter story time. But it took me ages to come up with a craft. Finally, one of my regular patrons, who sometimes helps me cut out shapes for the story time crafts, suggested animal masks. It was perfect! 

For the craft, you will need

• foam sheets
• Sticky-back foam (unless you'd rather use glue)
• hole puncher
• 8" strips of ribbon
• Mask templates, found HERE (or create your own!)
• Exacto knife

I looked around Pinterest for some ideas and found some really great templates, but I chose to do a bear mask, the template for which I had to create myself. However, after cutting out all the necessary parts for the bear and actually having story hour, I found that the original bear template was nowhere to be found, and for that I apologize. 

Basically all I did was freehand half a bear, fold the paper in 

half, and cut it out. I did the same for the snout. 

How to create foam masks: 

• If you are using sticky back foam, cut the mask bases out of regular foam, and the rest out of the sticky-back foam.
• Use and Exacto knife to cut out the eyes
• Use a hole puncher to punch holes for the ribbon

The kids can do the rest, which is basically just sticking the masks together and tying on the ribbon. Ta-da! Animal masks the kids will love.

Back in the Game

I took a small (almost 1 year) break to have a baby and adjust to my new position as library director. It was a busy year. On top of being a mom and new boss, my children's librarian left to go work at the school library (no hard feelings, she loves it there), so I've been doing the children's librarian duties as well. But I thought now that I'm used to all three positions, I should get back to blogging.

I'll be focusing most of my future posts on story time and the summer reading program, but you may see a post every now and then about being a director or about the crafts and things I create with my free time.

If you want to see what I've been up to lately, you can check out my Pinterest pages or my library Facebook Page, located on the right-hand side of the screen.