My two older boys are part of a Cub Scout Troop that needed a community service project. A little birdie told me that the Master Gardener in charge of the children's garden at Mt. Fir park was hoping to put in a Little Free Library. It seemed like a perfect fit.
The first thing we did was have each boy draw a design. It was fun to see what their imaginations came up with and we have a binder with all their drawings stored in the Little Free Library for visitors to enjoy. The boys came up with dragon libraries, log houses and snakes that had conveyor belts and spit out books. But we settled on making the Little Free Library to look like a fairy house because it will be located right next to the fairy garden that is part of the children's garden.
My husband built the structure. He took measurements of all the children's books we own, well maybe not all, and came up with a size. Then he built it to be like a Home Depot project kit. It all slid together and could be hand screwed.
Each of the boys took a turn diligently working to get their screw in tight.
Now that we had a blank canvas, it was time to attach the rocks, bark, sticks, and moss. Since we had to use heavy duty glue and fit everything together like a puzzle, we weren't sure if this would be a good task for this age range of Cub Scouts. We did, however, have each Scout pick a rock and write their name on it with a permanent marker. These were then glued onto the Little Free Library.
My boys and I went on a hike through my Aunts woods and got a lot more awesome stuff to decorate it with. We had meant to have the Scouts collect all the material on their hike but on the day of the hike, there were thunderstorms and we had to reschedule. My only regret with the creation of this library is that we didn't find more ways to get the Cub Scouts involved, some of it was outside of our control and some of it was within our control but we were afraid of making a mess in the church that graciously hosts our meetings. If I had it to do over again I would find a new location for the meeting, have the boys wear painting clothes so they could get dirty with out having to worry.
Never the less, it was now time to assemble and I recruited my Mother to help. I am so glad she was willing to help me, it would have been a really big challenge to do on my own. It took us 5 hours to complete the front, and the two sides (my husband did the backside for us). The most time was spent finding all the right rocks to fit together along the bottom. But it was worth it because I love having the boys names scattered around the bottom of the library.
I do believe this part of the process could have been done by older Scouts, Webelos and up. Especially now that I have done it once and know the secret to making it look good, moss! Moss can be tucked into all the gaps and cracks and makes it all blend together perfectly, giving you more wiggle room.
On the front we used river rock along the bottom, strips of bark up each side and above the flashing we layered bark chips that my Mom uses as ground cover in her garden. We stuffed the eves with a rich green moss and filled the space between the bark chips and flashing with light green wispy moss. We trimmed one edge with a really cool twig covered in moss. I am sure the twigs will get snapped off over time. But it looks cool for now.
The sides were centered around two awesome pieces of bark that inspired the whole design, the pieces with the holes which make perfect fairy windows. As we started working on each side we worked from the bottom up. We laid the library on it's side and put the bark piece where we ultimately wanted it to be when the side was complete, then added rocks and built up to where the bark was sitting. Once all the rocks were glued in place we would then glue down the large bark piece with the "fairy window". From there we would grab sticks, bark, pine cones and moss and puzzle piece it all together.
Here is a close up. We discovered that if you pop the top portion of a pine cone off it gives you a great little rose bud looking accent.
Here is the backside which my husband covered in bark. He actually took large pieces of bark and cut them into strips and laid them on there sort of like wood flooring. If the pieces of bark were wide they would have too much of a curve on the backside and they would not be easily glued down. Cut into strips they could be glued down well and because of how he installed them you can't see any cut edges.
This is the other side with it's fairy window and the rest of the Scout names.
Zoomed out to see all of it.
When my husband got home he put the metal roof on and the little knobs on the front then we transported it carefully to the garden and got it installed.
The night after we got it installed the Cub Scouts met us down at the garden and helped us put the finishing touches on the library by filling it with books.
On June 2nd we held the official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony and invited the whole community. We had the children's librarian from the Independence library there and even the Mayor who helped officiate. The Cub Scouts started the night with the flag ceremony.
Then Mayor John gave a wonderful speech thanking the Master Gardeners, the Cub Scouts and the parents for helping to make the community a better place by making this library.
This is a video of the official ribbon cutting.
Here it is a few months later, still standing, at the Children's Garden. We have already gone through a lot of books which is wonderful! We are also officially on the Little Free Library registry.
It was my husbands idea to make the roof out of durable metal, he really wanted this little library to hold up to the weather. I didn't think the metal roof would go well with the design of the library, however, now that I have seen it all together, I like the contrast. But the best part is, this garden and the library get watered daily. Even with daily watering it looks pretty much the same as the day it was installed. The only thing I have noticed so far is that the little sticks that make up the "fairy windows" keep getting pulled out. They really can't be glued in that firmly. Every time we are there I grab sticks from the ground, break them to fit, and put them back. Super easy.
This has been our Little Free Library journey. It has been such a fun service project. We continue to get books donated to us and make trips routinely to put them in the library, together as a family. Typically, not all of the books make it into the Little Free Library because it's inevitable that each of my children will want to take one home. Books are more exciting when you get to pick them out from a little library in the middle of a garden!
Construction Details: We used liquid nails (construction adhesive) to glue the bark on. This is a very strong glue but it is brown in color. It really is the best glue out of the two we used, but because it was brown it needed to be used where the glue really couldn't be seen.
We used clear silicone to glue on the accents. Like the moss, pine cones, sticks and small pieces of wood because if a little glue oozed out, the glue couldn't really be seen. We also used this glue for the rocks and so far they have stayed in place.
My husband was able to get AC sanded marine grade plywood from work to use for the house itself, but pressure treated plywood would be comparable to the wood he used.
My friend Amber is a women of MANY talents. You can find her at Life in Color's blog and she has Etsy store. For Christmas she gave Adam one of her I Spy Bags. This one is Dino themed and each of the dinosaurs are various primary colors.
Adam sat down at the table, with his yellow goggles on, and it just screamed photo op!
I have to say, he surprised me. I knew he could point out some colors, but he knew them all. Mom, it's the purple one, Mom it's the orange one. Mom it's the orange one's baby.
When he couldn't find one of them, I told him to shake it and the one he was looking for popped right up.
These things would be so perfect for entertainment in the car.
Each bag comes with the I Spy key, which is a photo of all the items you can find in the bag. The photo is laminated, so if I wanted to really get him into it, I could give him a washable dry erase crayon and have him cross them out as he finds them.
We started in our on Community Helper theme with hopes of being more consistent with our Mother Goose Time routine. We started with our day all about Firefighters. I went for the less messy activity first. It was a great counting/numbers tool that went along with our manipulatives for the month.
Each fire house had a number on the top and then it had that many corresponding garage doors for trucks. We started with putting one truck in each garage door but ended with putting them all in a line. We kept up the counting practice and the one to one correspondence by touching one and moving down the line as we counted. One through five were pretty easy but he got a bit carried away and took off zooming his fingers across the trucks as he counted the rest quickly and out of order. But hey, we are making progress.
The next day I finally got out the gumption to get the paint out. I gave them yellow and red paint and set out the fire inspiration photo. I asked "can you paint fire?" and left it at that. For Adam, I took the fork, pressed it in the paint and then pressed it to the paper, just to give him an idea of what to do.
He wanted a brush so I gave him one, then he asked for white paint, so I did that too.
At the end I came to take a picture and I pointed out the yellow in the flames and I said, I think there could be more yellow, what do you think? He took his brush, stuck it right in the yellow paint and put it on the paper. The only reason I did this is because yellow is the color we are focusing on this month. It turns out, he knows what yellow is! A little on the go assessment.
I had the camera out and my oldest wanted me to take a picture. I mean, how cool is that dude?
I sure do love him.
At this point we were about to start in on the Doctor theme when I realized we had not done our name tags fromm Firefighter day. It looks like Adam is doing a magic trick in this picture be he is actually celebrating his ability to write his name or at least follow a line.
I wrote his name first with yellow marker and then showed him how to follow the line with the pencil. Then I handed the pencil to him and he tried.
Writing on a fire truck name tag while wearing a fire truck shirt.
I love how much he was concentrating on this task.
He has mostly followed the straight lines so I showed him how to follow the curve in the d of his name.
"I did it!"
Next we moved into the D is for Doctor activity. I adapted it by only using the phonic photo cards for D, V, and U. Then I covered them up with a tissue and had Adam lift it off and tell me what was in the picture.
He is very familiar with an umbrella.
As Adam was exploring the pictures I asked the older boys to tell me what letter each item started with. Lachlan rattled them off easily which made me happy.
The next thing we discussed is what you do to stay healthy. The boys chimed in saying that to stay healthy they need lots and lots of screen time. Nice try, but no. Finally we got the topic of exercise and I asked them if they could jump like a star. We moved to the living room to give it a try and I turned up my ISO and my Shutter Speed so I could catch them in mid air. It was a lot of fun.
I could look at these all day, so entertaining.
The numbers we are working on this month are 3 and 13. So Mother Goose Time recommended we do either 3 or 13 jumps. I chose 13 for the big boys.
So we covered counting, one to one correspondence, art, decision making, the color yellow, writing, phonics, letters, shapes and physical fitness. I know some people have critiqued MGT for not including all of the basics in their learning. But the problem is that they disguise the basics so well into play that even the grown ups might not see it if they aren't looking closely.
And that was just in two days while not even doing all of the activities on each day. We didn't do the STEAM station on day 2 where we were supposed to play with the letter cookie cutters and play-doh. It also doesn't include our time during circle time and exploring the circle time displays which we do everyday.
On top of all those basics of learning we discussed firefighters, fire safety, fire trucks, doctors, staying healthy, what we do when we get sick and who helps us when we get sick. So much learning and so much fun.
