Winter Wrap-Up

It's time to review some programs again! I finished this one at the beginning of the month, but it's taken me a while to come 'round to posting about it. Mostly because there is just so much to say.

The flier and handout I made to advertise.

This program was based on an episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic (MLP). In this episode the ponies work together to clean up winter and make way for spring. Literally. So when I planned it, I basically wanted us to go through all the activities the ponies did to make way for spring.

These are the episode's big events:

• Cloud Clearing (clearing the snow clouds from the sky)
• Nest Designing (building nests for birds returning from the south)
• Ice Scoring (breaking up ice on frozen ponds so it melts faster)
• Waking Animals (waking up the hibernating animals)
• Snow Clearing (clearing the snow from the fields)

We made 3' paper ponies (and a smaller Spike) to decorate the room.

Before we started the episode themed activities, we had to get into character. So we started with a raft for the ids to make their own pony tails out of yarn and elastic bands (I tied them roughly child-waist-sized prior to the program) and ears out of craft foam and headbands so they could all dress like ponies. I also painted a cutie mark of their choice on their face. (Rainbow Dash was the most popular... Rarity was a close second.)

All decked out for pony partying!

Honestly...  this process took forever! Nearly the entire first hour. If I could redo this, I'd have an extra staff member or two (I already had one... thanks Susan!) to help run things and double up on painting. I also wish I had played Winter Wrap-Up or other MLP episodes during this time. Thankfully, a group of girls had their own My Little Pony sing-a-long and one mom started playing episodes on her phone for the kids to watch while everyone waited.

The kids (and parents) got really creative during the poniefication process. They used scraps of foam to add unicorn horns and used adhesive foam to make wings... I wish I had been creative enough to actually intend for the foam scraps to be used as such. I didn't have enough supplies for everyone to have wings and/or horns. Actually... it was just scrap foam we had in the craft closet! Clearly I need to reassess my foam usage.

Check out the wings on a little Rainbow Dash.

Now let me tell you about our activities.

We started with a short cloud clearing game. This activity didn't feature prominently in the episode but it was mentioned, and I still wanted to use it. So I made 10 white tissue paper balls and got out my giant parachute. I told the kids we had to catch all of the clouds (i.e. tissue paper balls) and try to keep them on the parachute as we bounced them. I had them follow simple movement instructions and had them count the clouds both when I tossed them onto the parachute and when we collected them. After that I had the grown ups take over and gave the kids a little time to play underneath the parachute because, really... who doesn't love that!?

Ponies ready to catch some clouds!

Having fun under the parachute!

I combined the ice and snow assignments into loose versions of relay races. For the ice I pulled out a cooler filled with ice cubes and had the kids take turns balancing the cubes on spoons and running them to the other end of the room where there were containers for them to drop their cubes into. Then they ran back and passed their spoon on to someone else.

Explaining the game.

Snow went about the same way. I bought some instant snow and the kids had an absolute blast when I brought it out! (Actually, they were really excited about the ice too. Who would have guessed?) They were mesmerized just gathering around and running their fingers through the stuff! Honestly, so was I; that stuff is amazing! But I digress. We ran a relay similar to the ice one, but we used cups instead of spoons and had larger containers at the end of the room. At first I panicked about snow spillage... but the snow turns into powder once the water evaporates out of it and you can vacuum it right up!

Filling the containers with snow.

I very nearly caused a revolt when the kids thought I had forgotten about the nest building activity! Who ever said kids don't pay attention to what they see on TV? This was a very simple craft. You just take a brown paper lunch bag and start rolling the edges down from the top... viola! Nest! I had them add string bits and green paper "leafs" into their nests to make them pretty and cozy for the baby birds. We were going to make chicks for the nests too, but at this point we were running short on time, so we kept it simple: no chicks.

Demonstrating the technique.

Lining their nests with yarn.

For our waking hibernating animals activity, we added a small educational twist. After all, we are a library! So we made a bunch of hibernating animals and hid them around the room. On their mark the kids each retrieved an animal and returned to the rug. Then I described one animal at a time and the kids with that animal brought them up to me and I discussed an interesting fact about their particular animal.

All the hedgehogs; safely found.

After completing all of our Winter Wrap-Up activities, we had the children finish up by making their own achievement badges. I had stiff felt rectangles with broach pins hot glued to them. The kids were able to cut the rectangles into whatever base design they wanted and glue felt shapes to the front of their badge; I saw lots of hearts and leaves.

Gluing the heart to her badge.

Badge design in progress.

And that was the MLP Winter Wrap-Up program! It was very popular. Due to a glitch in our online registration, we had almost double the attendance we expected, but it all worked out and everyone had a great time!

Susan (right) and I (left) posing with our pony twins.