This past Monday we made dream-catchers. Myself, along with two other library workers rallied some kids together to catch some dreams…or at least pass the time making in good company.

Sometimes it’s easy to capture that first kid who is looking to try out some creativity. On other days it takes some convincing.  On this particular day I had to do some encouragement tug-o-war!  There was a boy who seemed pretty into the idea of making dream catchers, but another kid was fairly determined to have him to himself to play cards.  But as the boy was already intrigued by what I was proposing it wasn’t much harder than dangling string in front of a kitten to get him to join in.

He got right to work making symbols (lions) and decorations for his dream catcher.  I was really happy to see that he was motivated to learn how to make different things and try it himself.  Self-esteem is generally a really big problem I’ve been confronting in the participants at my site but this guy had self-esteem to spare!

After a little while we had several more kids join in as well as one high school graduate who, though not very talkative, was having fun hanging out and making a dream catcher of his own.  After each one was completed we hung them up on the walls amongst the many other pieces of art we’ve been making this summer. We’re pretty close to running out of room!

This was a fun, simple project that was well received by everybody involved.  Next up will be two different mural projects that I’m really excited about. Stay tuned.