National Cookie Day

December 4th is National Cookie Day. It is a fun celebration in the month of December. It feels like a holiday program without any December holidays actually needing to make an appearance.  My library has been celebrating Cookie Day for all ages for a couple of years now.  We created an easy to follow program formula that works for one librarian in a large or small crowd.

 

Start off with a story!
There are plenty of books and traditional stories out there that feature cookies.  Here are the books I chose to use this year:
Fortune Cookies by Albert Bitterman, illustrated by Chris Roschka
The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Marcellus Hall

Now frost some cookies and make a craft!  The story(ies) are followed by two stations. 

 

One of the stations is a craft station.  We try to change this up every year.  This year we created paper fortune cookies to go with the Fortune Cookies book.  Decorate a paper circle.  Fold it just so (this can be a bit tricky). Then add a tiny dab of glue to hold the two ends together.  Fortunes are optional. I also put out small food take out boxes to be decorated and for carrying the paper fortune cookies. 

The other station is for frosting cookies. We find the cheapest non-frosted, non-decorated cookies we can find at the local grocery store. This year we found some store brand generic shortbread cookies to use. We also purchase a few tubs of pre-made frosting and tons of sprinkles.  We place two cookies on a small paper plate.  Use a knife to scoop up a gob of frosting.  The children then use the knife to spread the frosting onto their cookies. The sprinkles are at a special table with their own bowls and spoons ready to be "sprinkled" onto the frosted cookies. Now the cookies are ready for eating (of course)!

We learned several years ago that the children really do not care about the cookie itself.  So do not knock yourself out trying to get the perfect cookie. Really, it does not matter.  The high-point of this library event is the frosting and sprinkles. Everything else is just bonus material.