Students took part in library stress relief arts and crafts activities on Monday, Jan. 28 in the Library Media Center. This is the first year that arts and crafts have taken place in the media center during winter week.

The activities were organized by librarians Jennifer Guardino, Joanne Schmidt and Pam Miller as a way to help students de-stress after a very strenuous week of midterms.

“We thought it would be a good idea to set up some activities to help people de-stress and do some fun things in the library,” Guardino said. “Some of the things we set up were an origami station, popsicle stick crafts, a paper airplane station, gimp and lanyard-making.”

The arts and crafts stations seemed to be a huge hit among the students of Wayland High School.

“So far, I really enjoy creating new artwork,” sophomore Olivia Kennedy said. “It’s really fun how each table is a different arts and crafts that you can do.”

Many others believed it was a great way to relax after midterms and try something that differentiates from their regular school routine.

“[The crafts] are pretty fun,” junior Michael Wegerbauer said. “I’m learning how to braid stuff even though I’m bad at it. It helps de-stress me because I’m not thinking about school work or anything like that.”

Even some teachers came down to the media center to have some fun with the students. One of those teachers was Meagan Forsberg of the math department.

“I think it’s great to have an opportunity to work together doing activities that are not directly related to high stress and grades,” Forsberg said.

The library staff laid out the activities out on tables for the whole day, and students were allowed to participate during any block. Only one class was scheduled to participate, and the majority of students took part during their free blocks.

Because this is the first year that the stress relief activities have been available, Schmidt felt there was a chance attempting to mix students who were studying with students doing arts and crafts would be chaotic. However, she felt that the activity proved to be a success.

“I thought it would be hard mixing students who wanted to study with [arts and crafts], but so far, there hasn’t been overflow into the [classroom reserved for studying] or anything,” Schmidt said. “[There was] nothing we couldn’t handle, so everybody’s finding a place to be to do what they need to do.”

Schmidt thinks that there is a good possibility that the stress relief activities will become a tradition of Winter Week, and she even thinks that it would be beneficial to extend arts and crafts as a year-round possibility in the media center.

“I think it doesn’t even have to be during winter week. I think we could figure out a way to always have a craft table in the library or something like that,” Schmidt said.

Sophomore Taylor Travis does not specifically agree that a table reserved for arts and crafts year round would be beneficial to students, but she thinks that having a higher implementation of the activities would be interesting.

“I don’t know about always having an arts and crafts table, but maybe once in a while and definitely in future winter weeks so it feels like a special occasion like it did today,” Travis said.

Other people, however, found that the crafts would be a perfect way to relieve stress on a daily basis while also having fun.

“I would absolutely want there to be an arts and crafts table on a daily basis,” junior Zeke Betancourt said. “I appreciate Ms. Schmidt for doing this.”

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