Star Wars Reads Day

On October 5 my library was able to participate in the national Star Wars Reads Day event.  The event at my library was one of hundreds of events taking place all over the country, and one of four events in the local two-county area.  It was lots of fun!  The program was fairly well attended, with an estimated 40 children and their corresponding adults in attendance.

Several stations were set up in different areas of the library, each with a different Star Wars activity to try.  The idea was that kids could wander from activity to activity at their own pace, picking and choosing what they wanted to try.

Three crafts were set up in our Community Room under the supervision of a few teen volunteers.  Generally, the crafts took care of themselves and kids could easily complete them on their own or with a parent's assistance.  The teens were mostly there to be the authority figure in the room and offer assistance if needed.

First, we did some Star Wars origami.

I copied the instructions for Yoda, Darth Vader, and R2-D2 from the Origami Yoda books by Tom Angleberger.  These designs are, in the grand scheme of origami, very easy to follow.  Yoda only requires five easy folds to complete, so even very young children were able to create some origami with a little help. No fancy origami paper required:  Angleberger's designs are all intended to be made with scrap paper, so I simply cut colored computer paper into fourths.  Crayons and markers were set out along with the colored paper so that kids could add details to their creations.


The second craft project was taken from the Star Wars Thumb Doodles book published by Klutz.

I purchased a copy of the book and set it out along with some blank cardstock bookmarks (we had some pre-cut left over from a past program, but you could easily cut your own cardstock too), stamp pads, and markers, and wipes for clean up.  The kids were invited to copy the designs included in the book and create their own bookmarks.  They did a great job!


Finally, kids were invited to make their own lightsabers using twister balloons and toilet paper tubes.  I discovered this project here.

This was a super easy project that, while appealing for all ages, was especially well-suited for our youngest attendees.  It was probably also our most popular activity of the day!  Amazingly enough, we didn't have a single popped balloon outside of the Community Room were the lightsabers were constructed.


Outside of the craft room we had a scavenger hunt throughout the library.

Ten different characters were hidden in plain sight in different areas of the library.  Each child was given a worksheet listing all of the places where they needed to look for a character.  When they found the character, they simply needed to write the name of the character next to the location where it was found.  Some of these names were a tad writing-intensive ("Chewbacca" has a lot of letters!), but very young children all had help from their parents if they needed it and no one complained at all about the writing.  Kids who turned in their scavenger hunt sheets to the Reference Desk were entered into a drawing for a few Star Wars book prizes.


We also had a big book display set up in the Children's Room.  Our smaller programming room adjacent to the Children's Room was set up as a special reading area.

I had been hoarding some of these Star Wars books for awhile in anticipation of the display, so I had lots of books ready to go.  The Darth Vader costume came courtesy of one of my co-workers whose son had dressed as Vader for Halloween the year before.  The reading area was not as well used and I would have preferred (I blame some staffing issues that made it difficult to really inform kids that the reading room was an option), but a decent number of books were checked out on the day of this program.  Good thing - the Star Wars book are the whole point of the event!


Finally, there was also an activity for adults.  Our Reference department put together a trivia contest to challenge fans of the franchise.  While the Reference department had adults in mind when they created the contest, they did allow kids to participate too.  Anyone who wanted to play simply had to answer eleven questions.  Most of these questions were multiple choice, but a handful required you to write in your answer.  The person who answered the most questions correctly won a lovely Star Wars prize pack.

All in all, the program was a great success!  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  We had decent number of kids come to the program in costume, which made it all the more fun.  Tiny Darth Vaders, Clone Troopers, Jedi, and Ewoks always make programs more exciting.  I'm hoping that we can participate in the Star Wars Reads Day event again next year - and hopefully get some of the "pro" costumed characters from the 501st Legion to attend as well!