Pokemon Party
The event of the week was our pokemon party. I got a lot of ideas off Pinterest, of course. There are so many creative people sharing what they do for their own children’s parties. We had cupcakes, cookies, and drink boxes, because I ran out of time to make themed food.
Who’s that Pokemon?
I printed out pictures of pokemon, put them on a foam core board and numbered them, then gave out guess sheets. At the end of the party we announced the answers. The kids enjoyed this one, and even started using the books on display to help.
My volunteer made a Pokemon pillowcase, which we raffled off. We also let the kids select 3 mini figurines from a large batch set I bought off of Amazon. Having the kids choose what they got was more time consuming and contentious than I had anticipated. I had them choose by age, with youngest first (the party ages ranged from 5-13). My wonderful volunteer was able to identify each figure (I kept asking her dumb questions like “what’s this monkey with broccoli on its head?”) She also made origami Pikachus. If you can find a volunteer who is an enthusiastic fan, grab them and make sure they’re appreciated.
Pokemon scavenger hunt
I decorated a large box of ping-pong balls as pokeballs, using red paint, black sharpie marker and ring binder reinforcement stickers. If you plan to do this for your party, be aware of the number of participants. A box full of these looks like a lot, but if you have 13 kids searching, they only get about 3 each. I think I should have hidden the mini figurines we gave out as well. We did have two specially marked balls that meant getting a special prize.
Make your own card
There’s a great website for customizing your own pokemon card. I took pictures of the kids using our iPad, then a volunteer sat with each kid and entered their powers, abilities and descriptions. I then saved the picture and emailed it to my desktop. I happened to have postcard paper left over from another project, which was perfect for this. The website says to print it out and paste it to an actual card, we did not do that. If we had, we would have to fuss with the exact sizing.
I had expected the kids to bring their cards and play and trade, but only 3 out of the 22 kids did. If I do this again, I will get the local game store involved to help run a mini tournament with the 10-12 year old crowd.
