Pumpkin painting @WBCL

It was crisper than we expected but that did not stop the families from turning out for all kinds of activities and the annual pumpkin painting. The library tried something different this year and limited the groups to 20 each hour which was great for the first hour but left a lot of unpainted pumpkins at the end of the day with people unwilling to wait to paint. It was sure less crowded and a lot of fun as you can tell from the pictures.

Play Pumpkin painting

Twisty paper trees @WBCL

I have tried the paper bag trees before at school and love the look and the adaptability but sometimes they do not stand very well which frustrates the kids. This makes a great 3D project and used up paper that we might throw out otherwise so fits well into the recycled art category too.

 For this group we tried something new and it really worked well. We used the brown wrapping paper instead of bags and folded it a couple of times before cutting it into strips. We also used a sheet of black paper as a background to mount the tree onto when finished.

Everyone seemed to have fun twisting and shaping the limbs then adding the bits of tissue paper for leaves. Some had a few fallen leaves, some had a lot, a couple even put them onto the trunk so we could see they were falling but not down.

A flotilla of ships for Columbus Day @WBCL

What is Columbus Day? What better way to discuss a bit of history than to create all 3 of the ships famous for the voyage to the Americas. We used recycled materials to create the ships using ideas I found on-line as a guide. We used 3 cardboard egg cups, S-shaped styrofoam peanuts, a bit of home made clay, brown paper bags, and BBQ skewers.


The sample was painted but it seemed a better idea to wrap brown paper around the cup to create the "wood" then thread the styrofoam peanuts onto the wood masts and settle them into clay in the base of the cups. Most of the kids added flags to the tops of the masts. One of the kids decided that it was best to keep the 3 boats together by never seperating the cups. Guess they won't get lost that way!