{"id":16787,"date":"2017-10-31T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T04:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=16787"},"modified":"2017-10-30T16:27:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T20:27:30","slug":"its-the-great-edible-halloween-craft-charlie-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/its-the-great-edible-halloween-craft-charlie-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s the Great Edible Halloween Craft, Charlie Brown!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"a
Examples of Edible Haunted Houses created by young patrons at the North End Branch of the Boston Public Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have been itching to do an afternoon craft program at my new branch, which schedule wise, is not as easy as it sounds. \u00a0Monday? \u00a0Short staffed. Tuesdays? \u00a0Chess club. \u00a0Wednesdays? \u00a0Girl Scouts? \u00a0Fridays? \u00a0Adult Films. \u00a0That leaves Thursdays, and Thursdays in the Fall here are dead, because of ISEE test prep, soccer, and other fall things. \u00a0So, when the stars aligned for a Tuesday when there was no other programming, and we were almost at full capacity staff wise, I knew I had to jump!<\/p>\n

One of my favorite activities that we loved doing at my old branch was “Edible Haunted Houses”. \u00a0Using graham crackers, frosting, food coloring, and candy, kids were challenged to build their own scary structures. \u00a0Kids of all ages could participate, and it was a great craft to do as a family or with a group of friends as well. \u00a0 Another great thing is that this project is easily manageable for those with food allergies. \u00a0No specific brand of cookies, candy, icing, or food coloring is required, and everything can be swapped out. \u00a0For example, one family went home and did the craft using pizzelles!<\/p>\n

On average, we get about 15 kids at our afterschool programs. \u00a0I’m not always on top of program organization, so you can imagine how proud I was when by 11 am the day of (it was a 3:30 pm program), I was all set up. \u00a0I had 15 plates set out with graham crackers on them and \u00a0filled “piping” bags, made from ziplocs. At each table I had little bowls of candy toppings and napkins, just in case it got messy. Can you still see in your mind how proud and calm I was? \u00a0Great! \u00a0Now, imagine how I felt when at 3:30, 30 kids came in!<\/p>\n

The initial shock must have been fairly evident, because immediately, the parents around me jumped into action! \u00a0One set up a table and chairs, while the other mixed frosting and food coloring. \u00a0One handed out plates and graham crackers, and another divided up the candy. \u00a0This method of teamwork worked for about 5 minutes, but then more people came in, and it was time to throw caution to the wind. \u00a0We gave up on making the frosting orange, and just put the containers of white frosting on the tables with knives and spoons. \u00a0If you wanted a different kind of candy then was at your table, then you had to search for it yourself! The best part? \u00a0The kids seemed totally unfazed by the delay and chaos. \u00a0While they waited, they looked around at the projects their friends were working on and got ideas for their own creations.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the program was more of a treat than trick. \u00a0We ran out of supplies right before 5:00 pm, and only had to turn one group away, but that was because we had already cleaned up. Did you and your patrons do anything fun for Halloween? \u00a0Equally as important, do you have a great literary inspired costume? It’s been a little crazy here, but I finally selected a costume! \u00a0My younger sister and I will be Thing 1 and Thing 2, and our baby brother is going to be the Cat in the Hat. \u00a0We’ll be trying to update our Library’s facebook <\/a>page with photos throughout the day, so feel free to check them out!<\/p>\n

Have a Happy Halloween!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been itching to do an afternoon craft program at my new branch, which schedule wise, is not as easy as it sounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1211,38,414,1],"tags":[812,456,483],"class_list":["post-16787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-alyson-feldman-piltch","category-programming-ideas","category-stemsteam","category-uncategorized","tag-halloween","tag-holidays","tag-programs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}