Pinata time at the Austin Public Library!

When I stop and think about it, I am pretty surprised I got through an entire school year as an elementary school art instructor in a 60% Hispanic school and never thought to make a pinata. Well, with some trepidation about busting out copious amounts of watery glue to mache in a library, I took it out with those great kids at the Oak Springs Library. It has been a month in the making - with 4 layers of mache on an inflated punching bag, a couple of poster boards mached on for horns, as well as lots of colored tissue and crepe paper for decorations. And I have to say, that I am totally impressed with how they turned out.

One of our Oak Springs pre-teens was hard at work in making a tissue paper longhorn. Everyone that saw his contributions marveled at the creativity and precision of his work. He started taking it very seriously after that. So much so that when I asked him if I could get a picture of him smiling, he got a little stiff and said "I'm sort of...um... concentrating on this." It was a great moment.

Here's Gabby hard at work on her pinata.

We finished decorating and filling them last night, only a few minutes before the Oak Springs Christmas party started. All three were filled to the brim with bookmarks, stickers, chicklet gum (that busted up all of the concrete when they fell), weird foreign candy that came from the dollar store, and plastic animals. I can't describe the excitement of the evening. So so many kids chose pinata breaking over Santa pictures, an elf folding balloons, and listening to school choirs. Yep. It was quite the "hit". Terrible pun. Sorry...

Still, can you see the excitement on Daniel's face and the way he is standing in this pic?

When it got down to the last shreds holding onto the rope, I was consumed with anticipation. It would just kill me every time! Then when it broke, OUT OF THE WAY EVERYONE!

Usually the way it went was some disoriented kid with a bat would still be swinging while Lee, the security guard helping me, would try desparately to get the a hold of that swinging bat and take the blind fold off before any of the candy rushers got smacked in the face. Whew! There were some close ones too and I was just thanking my lucky stars that Lee was there. Here he is trying to explain the rules to an anxious girl who now has the bat, while wearing a blindfold.

Well, fun was had by all. I just love these Austin kiddos. Heck. Last night was so fun - I can't imagine anyone who attended would argue that it wasn't so bad to support your public library! Promoting literacy and community understanding can actually be lots of fun.