The grand finale of this year’s Cool After School classes on April 27 featured paper airplanes. And it was just as much fun as you might imagine!
We started out by folding Yes Mag’sexcellent glider (which requires a sheet of 8.5″ x 14″ paper). But soon everyone was sharing tips on their own favorite designs.
I had also collected a LOT of books on folding paper airplanes, and some kids immediately began browsing for new designs to test.
The kids had a lot of creative ideas, including piggybacking gliders, which separated in flight and went off in different directions.
We had to retrieve stranded planes from the overhead beams and various other locations.
But soon we were to be really impressed when Beckham, who had gone straight to the books, folded a supersonic plane launched with the aid of a rubber band that wound up on top of the HVAC ductwork very near the ceiling…and it is still there.
We had the largest turnout ever, and the airspace of the children’s room was white with fleets of paper aircraft!
In this story, a forester begins chopping at the kapok tree, but grows weary and takes a nap at the foot of the tree. While he is sleeping, a procession of birds and animals approach and whisper into his ear about their need for the tree and their wish for its survival.
For my version of the story, I changed the setting to a temperate forest.
Stuart dressed up in his Oak Tree costume, and I asked for a volunteer to play the part of the forester.
The succession of animals who came to whisper in the forester’s ear were Snake, Bee, Raven, Robin and Bluejay, Lynx, Weasel and Skunk, Rabbit, and Bat.
In the end, the forester spares the tree.
I introduced the story with a personal story about a time when I visited the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle, where I encountered the most gigantic cottonwood tree that I have ever seen. Its canopy came all the way to the ground, creating a completely enclosed space underneath the tree. As I ducked under the branches, I could see that the huge roots created an inviting, armchair-like place to sit at the foot of the tree. Nestling contentedly into the tree’s arms, I sat there for a long time.
Gradually, I became away of many rustlings, comings and goings, and general busyness in and around the tree. I suddenly realized that the tree was a living high-rise condominium, the home for hundreds, if not thousands of beings.
Eventually, I came back to myself with a start, remembering that I had strayed away from friends who were probably wondering what had become of me. I bid the tree farewell and hurried off in search of my friends. On the way back through the park, I came upon a little boy, perhaps about three years old, communing with a small flowering tree that was just his size. I stopped for a moment, because I saw that he had been captivated by this small tree just as I had been by the monumental tree. His mother was standing back, letting him take his time.
How lucky he was to have a parent who understood how to support and cultivate the sense of wonder in her child—instead of rushing him off to see the next tree, and the next and the next.
“Nobody sees a flower really….We haven’t time, and to see takes time—like to have a friend takes time.” –Georgia O’Keeffe
After the story, Stuart took off his mask. I told the kids that he had molded the mask on his own face, and I asked them if they could see the resemblance. “Yes! It does look like him! Oh! I see it!” they cried.
Afterwards, the kids created beautiful tree bodi-puppets.
For our Cool After School program on April 20, we took a field trip into the rose garden surrounding the library to find material for making sun prints.
It was a beautiful day, and the kids had a blast running around in search of interesting weeds, leaves, and seedpods for their sun prints. In our shade structure, we discovered some mushrooms, which we added to our collection.
We used the cyanotype process, which is the same process that was used to make architectural and engineering blueprints. Although the process was discovered by the English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842, it was the English botanist and photographer Anna Atkins who first used the process to create photograms to document plant life. Because of her pioneering work, she is regarded as the first female photographer.
As an experiment, we made some sun prints using regular construction paper, with an exposure of about three hours. It worked, but the images were faint and not nearly as exciting as the ones we made using specially treated photosensitive paper.
We used regular paper to work out our designs, then quickly moved them onto the special paper, keeping it covered with a piece of cardboard to limit its exposure to light until we took it outside.
Covering the vegetation with a piece of clear plexiglass to keep it from blowing away, we exposed the designs to the sunlight and waited for several minutes.
Then we removed the plant material and rinsed the paper in trays filled with water. (We added a little freshly squeezed orange juice to the water in order to achieve a deeper blue color.)
Getting to mess around with water added an extra dimension of fun to the project!
The finished designs were even more beautiful than we could have imagined!
Our April 15 edition of Page Presents featured one of my favorite books, Cool Daddy Rat, by Kristyn Crow and illustrated by Mike Lester (Lester received the National Cartoonist Society’s Ruben Award for Book Illustration for his jammin’ and jivin’ illustrations for this book!).
Earlier in the week I had presented three back-to-back story times for a nearby daycare, in support of their Family Literacy Week, and had gotten an enthusiastic response. Those kids were scatting with the best of them!
My favorite moment came when I was packing up, and I overheard one little girl saying to the boy next to her, “I’ll be Cool Daddy Rat, and you be Ace.”
(Note to self: a story with a puppet who speaks in a low-down gravelly type of voice is probably not the best one to tell three times in a row!)
On Friday, Mr. Matt brought his drum set to add authentic atmosphere, which was really fun!
Stuart had made an excellent cardboard double bass, and also lent a pair of sunglasses .
With a beret from Barbie, a sweater from Zoom, and a coat from Paddington, Cool Daddy Rat was ready for his marathon series of gigs. Ace borrowed a handknit sweater and some shades, and he was ready to stow away in his cool daddy’s bass case.
I cut a skyline from one of my big Stendig calendar pages and draped my puppet theater in dark fabric, and we were transported to the city that never sleeps!
I found myself doing an impromptu mime performance, since I realized that the kids would have no idea what would be happening when Cool Daddy Rat’s music “made a mime stare in Times Square.” This job certainly stretches me in all sorts of unexpected directions!
For our Page Presents class on April Fools Day, I really wanted to do something related to the French tradition of Poisson d’Avril (literally “April Fish”).
I set up my puppet theatre next to the open door of our story closet to create a hiding place, and I covered everything with a white sheet and shimmery lavender fabric to represent snow and ice. I played the part of Kumak, who declares, “It’s a good day for fish!” Kumak’s Uncle Aglu is feeling too creaky to go along, but he lends his magic hooking stick to Kumak. Everyone knows that Uncle Aglu, with his magic hooking stick, catches more fish than anyone else in the village.
Kids eagerly volunteered to play the parts of Kumak’s wife, his wife’s mother, and his children. We all mimed putting on our anoraks, and pulling on our mukluks and big gloves. Then I packed everyone into our pretend dogsled, and we drove to our fishing site and went to our respective fishing holes. I had a model of Uncle Aglu’s hooking stick, and everyone else had a pretend hooking stick. We all had to be very quiet and very patient so the fish wouldn’t know we were there.
Soon everyone in Kumak’s family had caught a fish, but Kumak hadn’t had a bite. But he continued to fish, quietly and patiently (I had flung my line over the puppet theatre).
Everyone gasped when they saw my line go taut! Stuart (in the Giant Fish costume) had hidden before everyone arrived, so it was a nice bit of magic. In the story, Kumak is nearly pulled into the water, and his whole family (and eventually the whole village!) joins in the tug-of-war.
After some dramatic movement away from the fishing hole, and then almost getting pulled in, Kumak and the line of family and villagers, all holding on to each other and not letting go, pull up an identical line of fish all holding on to each other and not letting go. In my April Fools version of this fish story, a gigantic Poisson d’Avril (wearing a Poisson d’Avril sash) gets hauled up at the end of the line of fish.
One of the grandmothers commented afterwards, “I can see that he is a very good catch!”
During our craft time, everyone cut out and decorated Poisson d’Avril fish and had a grand time sticking them on everyone’s backs! (This is what the French do on April Fools Day, and what child would not relish this ancient trick?)
Just now catching up! Our March 30 Cool After School class featured the camera obscura (Latin; “camera” is a “vaulted chamber/room” + “obscura” means “dark”= “darkened chamber/room”).
As in the eye, light reflected from an object travels through a small opening or lens and is projected on a facing surface. As in the eye, the image is projected upside down. (Our brain automatically rights the image; in a camera, a mirror flips the image upright.)
Then we made two larger versions. One was made from a medium-sized box like the one illustrated above, and the other was made from a large wardrobe box that allowed a person to stand inside. It was exciting to see the images projected on our screens!
Follow this link to an article from National Geographic on turning a room into a camera obscura!
Watch this Youtube video from the Exploratorium to see the setting and exterior of the giant camera obscura in San Francisco and the interior with the ocean scene projected on a table sized screen. The periscope-like lens can be moved to scan the coastline.
On my way to the Washington Library Association conference, I discovered an origami challenge in Southwest Airline’s flight magazine, Spirit—a five-dollar bill ostrich designed by John Montroll!
I didn’t have a five-dollar bill, but I acquired one after arriving in Yakima, and I wrestled with this fairly advanced model until I figured it out.
The theme of the conference was “Libraries Take Flight,” and all of the interest groups had decorated their tables accordingly during the first evening’s social event.
RIG, the reference interest group, was challenging all comers with an origami owl as well as a trivia contest.
Here is my owl.
On the way home, I had a nice, crisp five-dollar bill, so I folded one more ostrich.
Soon I’ll post the photos from our April origami workshop.
We folded traditional origami cranes, as well as lovely crane baskets!
My travel luck was holding. Betha and I made it across Snoqualmie Pass last week about forty minutes ahead of an avalanche that closed I-90 for hours.
On our way to the Washington Library Association conference in Yakima, we stopped off in Ellensburg to visit the lovely public library. What a delight it was to see all the public art in the library and around town.
Best of all was running into that charming rascal, Ma’ii (Kitt Coyote, by Richard Beyer).
He’s always good for a story.
The spring weather and the heady creative mix at the conference blew all the wintry cobwebs out of my brain and reminded me of a poem I wrote in 2006, while living on the Navajo Nation.
The grand finale of this year’s Cool After School classes on April 27 featured paper airplanes. And it was just as much fun as you might imagine!
