Paper Pals

After the demise of Stick Buddies my supervisor offered for the other Reference assistant and I to have our won easy to run regular programs. The idea being that either of us (or any librarian) could put it together and go. Much like stick buddies—little preparation, just ease.

After Carson described her enjoyment of zines and drawing, and I mentioned how much I enjoyed having special origami paper we decided to form Paper Pals, a program for kids in grades 1-5 to hang out in the library and draw, trace, color, fold, fly paper airplanes, or any other number of activities you can do with paper.

We alternate who will be in charge of the program each month- September was Carson, and so I took October. Today was my first day in charge of Paper pals.

Setting up the room is an important part of each program. Things must be welcomeing, an din order so that kids have an idea of where everything belongs before they begin.

I set a LOOOOOONG piece of paper on the floor for big drawings, brought in a table and chairs for drawing and tracing, and pulled out tables for origami and card making ( a new edition from last month). And set up the flight test area for the paper airplanes. On Carson’s suggestion we only made and flew the airplanes in the last 15 minutes. Otherwise the kids go WILD! This wasn't quite enough time for them to fold and fly their airplanes-- they wanted to fly them in clean-up time! Next time I'll start them making airplanes half an hour before the end.

The program is fairly easy to do, after the room is set up the kids start to come in and go to what ever station they like-- drawing, folding, cards, and they choose to stay at that station or move between them. The trouble is that some stations, especially paper folding needs a lot of attention- this is where a volunteer is especially handy. I made the mistake of making a water bomb as an example and so all the kids also wanted to make a water bomb, which is a challenge piece of work.

The next time I do Paper Pals, I'll be sure to either have a volunteer for that station, or just scrap it and have the kids stick to drawing, tracing, coloring, and card making.