Don't Try This At Home

Raccoon puppet as planned

For Valentine's Day I used The kissing hand by Audrey Penn and looked for a take-home craft to go with it.  "Oh, cutting out a few pieces for some kids - how hard can that be?" I thought to myself.  I love cutting things out.  Gah!  Monday's group canceled which meant I only had my Tuesday group (not realizing that it was the larger one) and Wednesday's individual walk-ins.  I traced and cut out over 500 pieces (although my husband helped with some while waiting for his car to be serviced).  I sent 26 off on Tuesday and hoped I had enough for Wednesday.  I did - phew!  But Monday (and part of Tuesday) was a frantic cutting session, even tripling up the paper, collating all the pieces, putting them in baggies, and inserting them in the paper bags. 

But, you know, it was worth it to see the cute little raccoon puppets come out - eyes crossed, hearts put any-old-where!  The walk-ins had the option to take them home or use the glue sticks I'd put out.  One little boy wanted to take his home, but his mom said they didn't have any glue at home.  As an inveterate and unrepentant craftie, I can't imagine a house without glue!  We might be out of epoxy, E-3000, crazy glue, fabric-tac, white glue, glue stick, gorilla glue, wood glue, glue pen, etc. - but no glue?  No glue at all?  How do they fix things? 

Anyway, here are some pattern pieces, but plan ahead (unlike me) and have your volunteers cut them out.

Pattern pieces for the Kissing Hand/Raccoon puppet.

Crafty Thursday

For the second week in a row I've been sub'ing in the Homeschooler program. They do a craft activity whilst I ruin their childhood with the 1947 Newbery award-winner Miss Hickory. I say ruin their childhood because wait until they get to the part where Squirrel - I can't go on. Oh, the horror! Already Squirrel has been eyeing Miss Hickory's head and popping up unannounced and uninvited in her bed (I'm not making this up, y'all!) to "keep her warm," he claims. It has become apparent that Fawn's mother is off to the local deer processor. Fawn's father is probably already on someone's wall. Miss Hickory is rendered homeless by a selfish chipmonk ("monk" indeed!). Poor drab Miss Hen-Pheasant has told her tale of abandonment by Cock-Pheasant, probably on account of her moping, lack of intelligence, and low self-esteem. Miss Hickory has advised her to throw the bum out if he comes back.

Fortunately for their sakes, the kids had these nice, colorful beads to play with while I droned on and on about this forest soap opera. Fortunately for me, their regular host will be back to finish this story about a little stick-woman who gets her head torn off by her down-stairs neighbor leaving her body to stagger about and come to the "happy" conclusion that it would never have to do any of that "hard thinking" again. This book is perfect for Halloween! It's chock full of horrors!


Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's Miss Hickory