Every Hero Has a Story: Superhero Crafts

We officially started our weekly summer kids programs this past Tuesday. Because this is the week of the Fourth of July holiday, I started out with crafts. The good thing about doing crafts during a holiday week is it allows me the option to save materials for any kids who aren't able to attend.

For the summer I do two sessions of each weekly program for Grades K-2 and two sessions for Grades 3-6. I am somewhat flexible with these age ranges, especially in the case of siblings. Breaking it up this way allows me to adapt the programs more specifically to each age range and maintain a registration size of around 12 for each program.

Without further ado, here are the crafts we did:

 

K-2nd graders

 

Superhero Cuffs

 

 

Supplies needed:

Toilet paper tubes
Paint
Brushes

Cost: Nothing

I cut slits into toilet paper tubes and let the kids paint their own cuffs. Word of warning they may stretch a bit as they are painted! I told the kids they could always squeeze them back into shape once they dry.

Superhero Capes

Supplies needed:
White fabric (about a half a yard per child)
Fabric markers

Cost: About $17 for the fabric, $15 for three new packs of fabric markers.

This was my big splurge for the program. I bought the cheapest white fabric I could find at JoAnn Fabrics and new fabric markers. The fabric was cut into cape sized pieces and U shaped hole was cut in the top for the neck. It was definitely worth it, especially when I saw a little boy come into the library the following day wearing the cape he had decorated. FYI: I've also seen capes made out of old t-shirts, which is something I might consider if I did this again.

Superhero Shields

Supplies needed:
Paper plates
Paint
Paintbrushes

Cost: Nothing

To complete their gear, the kids painted paper plate "shields". These were definitely a hit as well.

Desk wrap: 

Supplies:
Large roll of paper
Crayons

Cost: Nothing

Our final craft for this age group was decorating a large piece of paper I will use to wrap my desk this summer. The great thing about this craft is that once it is displayed kids will most likely bring their families by the library to show it off.

3rd-6th graders

Superhero Puzzles

Supplies needed: 
Popsicle sticks (About 5 per puzzle)
Print outs of superheros or old comic pages
Glue
Crayons or Paint

Cost: Nothing

I got the idea for this craft at GeekyKool.com. The basic idea is taping Popsicle sticks together and gluing an image on. The sticks are then cut apart to create a puzzle. I didn't have old comics available, so I used the hero images that have generously been made available at Hafuboti. The kids could color or paint these heroes, a process that kept most kids engaged for close to a half an hour.

Superhero Scratch Offs

Supplies needed: Scratch offs and scratching tools

Cost: $6

I didn't have a chance to get a picture of these, but we broke out the superhero scratch offs I ordered from the CSLP program. They are basically black superhero shapes you can scratch to reveal a variety of colors. The kids seemed to like these, even though some of them just proceeded to scratch off their entire super hero.

Create your own comics

Image from openclipart.org

Supplies needed:
Comic print outs

Crayons

Pencils

Cost: Nothing

I printed out sheets of comic strips for the kids to create their own comics. There are many places you can find these templates online, but I got mine from the blog Sweet Hot Mess. Due to how long they spent on the puzzles, many of these comics ended up being taken home.

I hope that everyone is having a great summer so far, and that these crafts come in handy. If you have any programming or craft ideas to share I'd love to hear them!