How to Create a Collaborative Community Trading Card Using a “Community Doodle”

Looking for a low-cost, passive library program that brings your community together? This simple collaborative art activity encourages your library kids and adults to create unique trading cards together.

Once finished, you can use these custom, community-made cards as prizes for your reading program milestones or rewards for participating in special library events.

This creative activity is perfect for a busy summer at the library and won't require a lot of staff attention during the day.

Created by Nathan Young at the Harris-Elmore Public Library!

This brilliant passive programming idea was created by Nathan Young at the Harris-Elmore Public Library. He designed this cooperative art activity called Community Doodle to keep patrons engaged at the library without requiring constant staff supervision.

Here is how Nathan set up the activity, along with a few budget-friendly alternatives you can use at your library.

Step 1: Prepare Your Giant Blank Line Art

To get started, choose a blank piece of line art. Sprite is the ideal line art to use with this activity because of its large, open, blank areas. However, you can choose whatever magical creature your community prefers.

1. The Reusable Method: Nathan printed a giant blank sprite and covered it with laminate to make it dry-erase friendly. This allows you to reuse the same background repeatedly without printing a new sprite each time.

2. The No Fuss Method: If you aren't able to laminate something that large, using plain paper works perfectly. Instead of dry-erase markers, you can set out colored pencils, crayons, and markers.

Step 2: Set Up Your Passive Library Station

1. Post your blank sprite in a visible area of your children's room or teen space. Make sure to hang it at a height that is easily accessible to children. Supply dry-erase markers or crayons nearby, and let your patrons do the rest! Throughout the day, kids and adults will work together to color, doodle, and decorate the creature.

   
   

   Having it in a visible area is helpful so the kiddos don’t get carried away with the markers and draw on something they aren’t supposed to.

2. Include written instructions to encourage people to add their own art to the sprite and respect the creations of others.

3. Take a photo of the completed sprite at the end of the day. If you are using the dry-erase method, erase it for the next morning. If you used plain paper, put up a fresh sheet so a new crowd can start scribbling the next day.

How to Turn Community Doodles into Printable Trading Cards

Once you have your photos, you can easily transform your patrons' artwork into official additions to your reading program card deck using Canva.

1. Open the Template: Open up the blank card template in Canva.

2. Upload the Artwork: Upload the photo of your daily community sprite.

3. Remove the Background: If you have a paid Canva account, use the Background Remover or Magic Grab tools to instantly isolate the sprite. If you are using the free version of Canva, use Magic Layers—it usually works well, though it can occasionally create some weird results.

4. Finalize and Print: Resize your sprite to fit the card frame, give your new community creature a fun name, and print them out to share with your library kids and adults.

Thank you so much, Nathan, for creating and sharing such a clever yet simple passive programming activity with the Reading Dragons community!