Star Wars Party

Since "May the Fourth Be With You" is right around the corner, a Star Wars -themed program seems like a great share today! Librarian-students all had a chance to create/report out a program they developed as a final project. Each considered the goals of the program, format (active, passive), how much time/money it might take and described how it was or would be done. Tara from WI shared this idea.

I will be holding a Star Wars Reads Day event the first Saturday in October from 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. This time of day seems to be the best time to offer the event as it will give families time to get up and going on a Saturday. And of course I want to end it by noon so families can be off to get their lunch. We have a large portion of our collection devoted to Star Wars materials and we have a lot of young patrons who like to read Star Wars whether it be series in our younger books and school age or graphic novels and of course we offer the Origami Yoda series I will use as the books in the displays.   I will decorate the library windows with large double sided posters that give detailed information on the ships and droids from the original movies to go along with the book displays - all of these posters were donated to us.

The event itself will consist of a scavenger hunt, Star Wars trivia, craft activities, a game, photo options, Star Wars snacks, and Star Wars Reads Day giveaways. The Star Wars Reads Day website and newsletter allow participating organizations to get links to supporting companies to sign up for items to giveaway such as bookmarks, buttons, posters, and origami sheets for free, I will use these items as prizes for the event. I will cut sheets of paper and copies of simple and intermediate origami patterns for kids to try from one of our Star Wars origami design books. The Star Wars Reads Day site also offers an activity guide that includes coloring sheets, activity sheets, Star Wars trivia games, as well as recipes to try. I will pick a few of these items out and make copies to make available for kids to do at the library or take home with them.

For the scavenger hunt, "I Spy with My Jedi Eye", I will copy pictures of Star Wars characters and place a letter by each one and hide them around the library. As the children find the characters they will write down the letter next to the corresponding character to reveal a secret message from Yoda- “Read You Should”.

As part of the crafts children will be able to make Admiral Sackbar puppet from a paper sack and construction paper. Children will be able to "destroy the Death Star" by playing a bean bag toss game made from a large cardboard box. I will paint the box up to look like the trench run on the Death Star from the original movie with a hole in the box to represent the "weak spot" of the Death Star. I will make small bean bags from scraps of felt and leftover bean bag fill we have in our basement, these bean bags will represent the ships. A station will be set up for kids to create their own snack ship. Graham crackers, mini marshmallows and frosting will be used to create the tie fighter ships.

We have a six foot Darth Vader and a three foot Yoda that children will be able to have their picture take with and children will be encouraged to come dressed up if they would like. Children will also be able to bring in  their favorite Star Wars item if they would like to share.

The cost of materials will be very small for the program since we have all the materials that I would need already available. We typically get between twenty and thirty children for a program at our library so I will need to pick up a couple of boxes of graham crackers, a couple bags of marshmallows, and a tub of frosting, all of these I will be able to purchase at our local Dollar Tree store. It will take about three and a half hours to make copies of materials, signs, and instruction sheets, scavenger hunt sheets, and make the Death Star bean bag toss game. The setup for the program beforehand will take about another hour since I have to rearrange some furniture in our children's section of the library  for the day.

Children will be able to acquaint themselves with the different parts of the children’s section during the scavenger hunt since each character is placed near a different section such as new books, graphic novels, series picture books, etc. Children can take turns playing a game. They will be able to use engineering and building skills constructing a simple ship with their snack food. Children will be able to be artistic and construct paper crafts and a puppet that they can take home with them to extend their fun. There will be other activity sheets and coloring sheets available for them to take home or work on in the library as well. Children will be able to test their knowledge of Star Wars and encourage them to read more Star Wars books to find the answers if they don't know them. And of course children will have the opportunity to choose books from the Star Wars materials available to read and check out.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay