Summer Reading Window Display

Okay, I will admit that I was really procrastinating on decorating our front window as I had no idea what to use.  It is an important space as it is our one creative space in the library to decorate for summer reading.  My idea of Dig into Reading tends to veer towards dinosaurs and construction, rather than moles and other underground animals.  I also knew that whatever we designed had to be big and bright enough to fill the front window so you can see it from the road.  My partner-in-crime, Kara, and I put our heads together and came up with...

Since our front window also is one wall of our lobby, we like to make our pictures double-sided.  The kids love being able to see things up close (and we love the bright colors).  The large flowers helped to fill up the window space and provide bright colors and shapes that you can see from the road.

Since I am not really an underground animal type of person (moles do make me shudder), we ended up with 2 big ant hills.

The hills are cut freeform.  To get a pattern for the ants, I put 3 large circles together on a piece of 11x17 paper.  There are sticker eyes on both sides (outside and lobby) of the ants.  The legs are strips of paper cut down to be the same size.

Green grass runs along most of the window.  I like it because it gives the window a 3-D effect.  To make your own, cut strips about 1 inch wide along the top of a piece of paper.  I used scotch tape every 3-4 strips to help hold the grass up and to give it some dimension (after all, you don't want all of the grass curled over).
 

We had some leftover paper and window space so we added a few bugs.  To make the shape of the bee, I set up a 11x17 page in Microsoft Publisher and made two circles.  One I stretched long to make the body and the other I left normal for the head.  Our bee has sticker eyes (to tie him together with the ants).   We used a Sharpie marker to color in the stripes and add a mustache.  We have a lot of mustache-themed prizes this year and wanted to tie the mustache into the display.  It also gives it a bit of whimsy.  The wings are cut out of wax paper and are teardrop-shaped.

Our other bug was a ladybug.  It uses the same shape as the bee and is cut out of a dark pinkish-red paper.  He has sticker eyes (like the ant and the bee) and his spots and details are colored with permanent marker.  His antennae are made out of black pipe cleaners and have curled ends.

I couldn't resist adding a bit of construction to our display.  We just changed to words to read "Summer Reading Zone".  It is a yellow diamond and a brown rectangle with the lettering done with permanent markers.

Our entire display took about 4 hours to put together and cost a grand total of $3.96.  We were able to buy the paper from our local ISD Teacher's Workshop, which sells giant roll paper by the foot.