Sun Catchers

At the Boy's and Girl's Club we have a summer camp every year. Each week has an individual theme, and activities are then based around that theme. One week we had dealt with nature, and I decided it would be fun to have my group make sun catchers.
My group consists of thirteen 9-12 year olds, and I knew they could do this activity easily.

How to Start:
Supplies:
Black Construction Paper
Elmer's Glue (NOT gluestick)
Tissue Paper
Scissors
White Crayon
Template

I printed a butterfly coloring-page from the internet, something big and easy to trace/cut. When I cut it out, I took the white crayon and traced it onto the black paper. (You can see the outline in the picture below on the back of the butterfly).

When traced, cut out. Cut strips of tissue paper and glue around the outside edges before placing the tissue paper on. CAUTION: Don't put too much glue on or it makes the tissue paper too wet and will rip it.

Back view:

Front View:

I hung these on the wall for the rest of the week, so all of the kids could look at their beautiful butterflies. One of my kids even put small googly eyes on the head so the butterfly had eyes.

We are the Monsters!

Hello! I have been working for the past four years with the Boy's and Girl's Club. The hardest part I have experienced is planning. So to help those of you planning activities for any children, I am going to share what I have been doing.
A quick explanation about our program: the Boy's and Girl's Club I work for has a summer program which runs from early June to late August. We are open from 8:30 am to 2:00 pm. From 2:00pm to 6:00pm is our open rec time (which also runs through the school year as an after-school program). This is called the juniors program, but there is also a teen program that runs from 3:00 to 7:00 every day (including summer and school).
Every summer I give my group a team name. This year (obviously) we are the monsters. My first year we were the Bee Brigade, then the Dragons, [can't remember], now Monsters. Because of this, I have planned a lot of my activities to be associated with monsters.

The first thing I had my kids do:

I took a posterboard and cut it in half, then folded it about 3/4 of the way and stapled the sides to create a "craft pocket." I allowed them to draw/color a monster on the pocket part, and they colored their names (which I wrote).

There are several projects we do which take more than one day, so I have the kids put them here until we pull them out again. I also have them put completed crafts here (instead of cluttering the shelves and counter space).