Star Wars Day at the Library

Star Wars Day

As part of “Dream Big, Read!” we had Star Wars day at the Library this Saturday. I made it an open event, where kids could stop in and out over the course of three hours. We made a book display to help promote the event, culling everything Star Wars from all over our library.

Food:

I ran out of time to really do justice here. If you have time, check out the official Star Wars cookbook. I had “Wookie Cookies” which were store-bought chocolate chip cookies (the bakery was out of snickerdoodles, which would have been my first choice for store-bought.) I wanted to make “Yoda Soda”, but the two stores I went to were out of lime sherbet, so I just served the lemon-lime soda that was part of the punch as the drink itself. We also had ice pops as “lightsabers”.

Activities:

We watched Lego Star Wars: the Padawan Menace.  The “Star Wars in two minutes” sketches were hilarious! We made R2-D2 paper models from the Starwars.com activities page. We made simple 5-fold origami Yodas from the author of “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda”, Tom Angleberger.

I made 26 pool noodle lightsabers, (following directions from Muddyboots) I divided the program room into two parts, the craft area and “Jedi Training.” I wore Jedi robes and instructed the kids to train by keeping a balloon up in the air. I recommend you have at least a dozen balloons prepared for this, for each child will want their own. We discussed fencing stances, dueling etiquette, and “stop hitting each other in the face!” As people were coming in and out, we had a good flow of padawan recruits. Before handing anyone a sword, give them a quick, friendly reminder of the rules (do not hit an unarmed person, do not hit anyone in the face, a lightsaber only needs a light tap to work, smacking is not necessary).  All in all, the kids had a blast- this would be a great outdoor activity.

We had the pleasure of a volunteer who regaled the children with stories of attending the opening day of the first Star Wars movie, and talked about how movie-making has changed since that time.  We had a few “scrapbook” books to work from, to show pictures of models and sketches and the work involved.

We solicited prizes from local comic book stores, game stores and our local sci-fi convention planners. There were plenty of prizes to go around, thanks to a generous donation from a volunteer.  We received a box full of new comics from Dark Horse comics, and gave them out to those of the appropriate age level (about 10 and up).  As most of our participants were between 4 and 9, we plan to give the comics as teen prizes.

The event was a great success: getting us in the paper, making kids happy and making adults nostalgic.  A marker of  how well it was received was that about two thirds of the book display was checked out by the end of the event.  Read, and the Force will be with you!