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Check my Let's Make Stuff page for directions on how to make a paper campfire with your young friends and family members.  Very cute and you can use it as a fire starter when you go camping.

It's KBWT!  I'd like to feature Kathy Ross' website as the Kids Book Website for today.  Kathy has written slews and slews of books about making crafts with kids, or about kids making crafts.  Her crafts often use items that other people will toss away.  Some of her crafts are SO clever and SO easy that I am speechless with wonder.  To be completely unbiased, I have to admit that a few of her crafts do not appeal to me.  But every single one of her books has several crafts that I wish I had thought up first.

So many craft books for kids result in "cute" things that are really more about technique and/or about keeping the kids busy than they are about making something useful.  Kathy Ross' crafts often have a play or gift component.  The Comet Balls from her book Crafts for Kids Who Are Wild about Outer Space are a good example. (Sadly, the book is no longer in print.)  We made those last week for the Stories in the Schools.  They are simple aluminum foil balls with ribbon tails that allow children to toss the balls and catch them by the tails.  So easy to do.  So cute.  Have I been effusive enough?  Check out the website.  Look for Kathy's books at the bookstore or library tonight!

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Today, I am sharing books about fireflies with the children at the Allentown Public Library.  And we will be making this Karen Maurer original craft:  Bugs in a "Jar".  (I decided to do away with the crumpled paper at the bottom of the cup. It's distracting.)

I got my inspiration for this craft from an article I read, suggesting that children could use clear plastic take-out cups and the lids as bug collecting "jars".  That's a lot safer than the canning jars I used as a kid.  One trip on the pavement and there would be shards of glass everywhere.  And take-out lids already have holes punched in them for the straw.

To make my "bugs" glow, I used glow in the dark pony beads, available online at Oriental Trading.   Any pony bead will make a bug and you can get a bag of 100 hundred beads for $1 at Dollar Tree.  The glow-in-the-dark beads go with my firefly theme.

The wings are scraps of tulle.  I bought mine at Dollar Tree but any craft store has rolls of the stuff for cheap.  Other possible materials for wings include tissue paper, which is a little delicate, and scraps of thin fabric.

My take-out lids were given to me by the good people at Panera on Cedar Crest in Allentown.  If you are doing this with just your family, save your take out cups and lids and the craft is truly cheap.

It's Thursday and that means I should talk about Storytelling.  One of the best types of storytelling is when people share stories of "when I was little".  So instead of featuring a storyteller or a book, I challenge my readers to tell stories of summer nights "when I was little." 

When I was little, we chased fireflies, counting them up and trying to outdo each other.  The smaller kids would swing their hands through the air and shout out numbers, whether they caught a bug or not.  There is nothing worse to a little kid than not being able to keep up with the older kids. 

How do I know my little brothers and sisters counted pretend fireflies?  Well, when they finally caught a lightning bug - that's what we called them - they got so excited, they gave themselves away. 

We lived near a park - the picnic kind of park - and there were perhaps six lone streetlamps casting our shadows long and dark on the grass.  The street lamps didn't put out enough light to discourage the lightning bugs.

We ran outside in our pajamas and in our bare feet and we sang snatches of songs.  My sister and I liked to pretend we could speak other languages by singing "O Sole Mio" as loud as we could and then gibberish to the rest of the tune.  We only did this at night.  Night makes anything seem possible.

Those memories are not really a "story" but they were fun to share with you.  Catch some real lightning bugs tonight.  Check out Firefly.org for information about these amazing little lightbulbs.

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Celebrate President's Day by making a log cabin out of a paper bag and some strips of paper!  Like this:

1. Cut 3 to 4 inches off the top of a lunch bag.
2. Fold the bottom in half so that the long sides of the bottom match and staple the long sides together to create a roof.
3. There is a crease that runs along the bag where the bottom of the bag was folded flat against the bag.  This is the edge of the roof.
4.  Cut strips of brown paper 1/2 inch wide and as long as the front of the bag.
5. Glue the strips to the front and back of the bag from the cut end to the edge of the roof.
6. Open the bag up and place open end down.
7.  Take a piece of black or dark brown construction paper, about six inches long and as wide as the front of the bag.  Fold this paper in half from top to bottom and rest on the bottom of the bag.
8.  The chimney is a scrap of red construction paper glued to the roof.

Options:
You can glue strips to the sides of the bag; cut open windows and doors; or just glue on shapes to show doors and windows.


 So, what president is famous for living in a log cabin?  Abe Lincoln, of course.  One of my favorite books- for young readers - about Abraham Lincoln is Kay Winters' Abe Lincoln, the Boy Who Loved Books.

Enjoy your day off from school (or your child's day off from school).  Read about a president.  Or visit National Geographic Kids for Fun Facts about the Presidents. 

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