Star Wars Day - Mini Lightsabers

 

May the 4th be with you!

Last May, my library celebrated Star Wars Day with a passive craft table.  It was out all day long. This craft was to create mini lightsabers.  Supplies were simple: Mini finger LED lights, Boba straws, masking tape, and permanent markers.   

This was a low cost, low staff intensive, activity with some fun results.  It was fun watching children and adults swing around their miniature light up sabers.  

Star Wars Day - Silly Lightsabers

 

May the 4th be with you!

Last May, my library celebrated Star Wars Day with a passive craft table.  It was out all day long. This craft was to create a pretend lightsaber using balloons and duct tape. 

This was a low cost, low staff intensive, activity with some fun results.  After playing with the duct tape, some of the little kids would swing their pretend lightsabers, they were adorable!

 

 

 

 

Geeky Storytime: Star Wars!

A storytime created for the 2018 PuliCon (mini convention) event. A celebration of comics and popular culture. 

Opening - "I Am Here and You Are Here" action song from Sing It! Say It! Stamp It! Sway It! Volume 3 by Peter and Ellen Allard

Literacy activity - Droid Alphabet Flannelboard
Each child is given one picture of a droid with a letter of the alphabet on it. The children bring their droids up to the board when their letter is called.  

 

Book #1 - I am a Jedi by Christopher Nicholas, illustrated by Ron Cohee

Alternative for Book #1 - Star Wars 123 (board book from Scholastic)

Stand up activity - In Tatooine's Sky (action rhyme adapted by Carol Hopkins)

On Tatooine in daytime light
(stretch arms out)We can see 2 suns shine bright
(make circle with arms)We can see the dust clouds white
(sign language for the color “white”)Following speeders in their flight
(zoom one hand through the air)In the sky in black of night
(stretch arms out)We can see 3 moon’s light
(make circle with arms)We can see the stars in sight,
Twinkling high with all their might.
(wiggle fingers) 

Flannelboard - Starships

Show pictures of different starships from the Star Wars universe.  Let the children guess what they are commonly called or which movie/tv show they come from.  

Starships I used:

Star Destroyer

Nebulon Frigate (Medical Frigate)

Milennium Falcon

Ghost

Blockade Runner/Corellian Corvette

Tie Fighter

X-Wing

Slave-1

B-Wing

Y-Wing

 

Book #2 - Rolling with BB-8 adapted by Benjamin Harper, illustrated by Brian Rood (board book)

Alternative to Book #2 - Star Wars Colors (board book from Scholastic)

Closing music with prop - Dance with scarves to the song "Silly Dance Contest" from Jim Gill Sings the Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes by Jim Gill

Art activity - Color and cut out Yoda ear headbands

Family Fan Club: Star Wars

Last year I tried out a very successful Harry Potter Book Night.  This year I wanted to create a program around a different type of fandom.  I chose Star Wars because of the release of Rogue One in December.

I basically advertised this library event as a family-friendly party to celebrate all things Star Wars. During the one hour party, there were craft stations, creation stations, and party games that children of all ages could take part in.

Droid Shooting Gallery - I taped pictures of different droids to empty water bottles.  The children then threw bean bags at the bottles to knock them down.  Such an easy game to make.

Jedi Training Course - In two rows of non-fiction shelving I set up some obstacles for the children to go through. First was to manuever over and under the laser beams (red crepe paper taped across the shelves). Next, the children had to jump over lava pits (hoola hoops). Then, crawl through an underground tunnel (expandable kiddy tunnel).  The lava pits were mostly ignored but the tunnel and "laser beams" were what most kiddos wanted to do over and over again.  We had to retape the crepe paper a couple of times during the party.

Silly Sabers - Create very silly looking light sabers by wrapping different colored duct tape (the hilt) around one end of a long skinny balloon (the kind used to make balloon animals).  I think this was the most popular craft station. My volunteers who were blowing up balloons were kept busy the entire evening.

Mad Libs - I found these wonderfully created Star Wars themed Mad Libs at this Packed With Fun blog.

Clone Trooper Paper Dolls - A coworker and I created some cardboard templates for this station. The kids could free hand their own paper troopers, but tracing the pre-made troopers was much more popular.  I like how most of them never seemed to look clones of each other.  Legal size paper worked best.

Straw Connectors Space Stations - I felt like I needed one more station so I grabbed the two boxes of Straw Connectors out of storage. These were a perfect fit. I placed them on the floor where there was a lot of room and the kids really went to town with these.  I saw some structures that were taller than the kids making them. A little STEM added in does not hurt anything.

Volunteers - Of course this evening could not be as fun as it was without my wonderful volunteers! Five members of the local high school Key Club were on hand to make things run smoothly.  These teens were super helpful.  I also got some wonderful appearances from the 501st Legion. The two Storm Troopers and the Boba Fett were just plain awesome interacting with the children (and adults).

Reflection - This program was well worth the time to create it. I had fun, the families in attendance had fun, and even the staff at the check out desk had fun.  Cost wise, it was rather inexpensive.  I had paper, scissors, crepe paper, and coloring pens on hand.  The balloons were left over from a Dia event a few years back.  I brought the water bottles from home.  The only thing I really needed to purchase was the duct tape. I spent less than $125 on the whole event.  With about 110 people in attendance, that is good ratio.  There are tons of great party ideas out there so I could easily do another event with a totally different set up of stations.  May the force be with you!

Little Engineers: Geeky Star Wars Storytime

Last summer my library tried a new type of program that incorporated STEM along with school readiness activities.  (Read about it in the "Exploring Science with 'Little Engineers'" article in the May 2015 ALSC Matters.)  This new program was very well received.  Which made us feel very good about the expensive robotics kit we purchased for it. 

This summer I wanted to give an encore of this Little Engineers program, but with a different twist.  Inspired by the geeky storytime ideas I saw over at the Green Bean Teen Queen blog, I decided to do my own geeky storytime with the Star Wars universe as the focus.  

This program is designed for children 3 to 6 years old.

It starts off with a quick storytime on the floor in the center of the room. 

 

Books - 
Star Wars Colors (Scholastic 2013)
Star Wars 1, 2. 3 (Scholastic 2012)

Action rhyme - In Tatooine’s Sky (adapted by Carol Hopkins)

On Tatooine in daytime light
(stretch arms out)

We can see 2 suns shine bright
(make circle with arms)

We can see the dust clouds white
(sign language for the color “white”)

Following speeders in their flight
(zoom one hand through the air)

In the sky in black of night
(stretch arms out)

We can see 3 moon’s light
(make circle with arms)

We can see the stars in sight,
Twinkling high with all their might.
(wiggle fingers)

After the short storytime, the kids were eager to get going on the many stations I had set up.  I gave everyone a check list to make sure they went to every Padawan training station.  Here is a copy of the checklist.  I called the stations “Trials” to make it sound more “Jedi” like.  The children received a pencil and a drawing ticket into our summer reading raffle for completing the check list. 

 

Scissor-force Trial – Cutting with scissors of course!  The children could make a Yoda ears headbands or a Princess Leia buns headband.  I also put out color pens for decorating their creations.

Design a MSE “Mouse” Droid Trial – I used Chinese take out boxes as the basic shape of the droid.  These can be found in large quantities for cheap at a restaurant supply store.  I had the children decorate the droid by gluing craft foam shapes onto the outside of the box.  I also put out color pens.  I had a couple of kids get really into this and made some boxes that looked like real droids. 

Lightsaber Practice Trial – I had to put in lightsabers somewhere!  I just took two pool noodles and cut them into 3 equal lengths.  One of my teen volunteers then decorated the “hilts” with duct tape to make them look like lightsabers. I put out some balloons for the children to hit with the sabers. 

Mini Droid Experimentation Trial – We picked up a Cubelet set last year for this Little Engineer program. Tiny mini robots fit right into our Star Wars theme.  Now I have gotten two uses for these expensive toys.

Augmented Limb Trial – The Zoob Jr. set came in the same preschool robotics kit we bought last summer that contained the Cubelets. I thought I could make them work in the Star Wars theme.  It met with variable success.  About half the kids experimented with them and about half could not figure out what to do with them. 

In the center of the room on the floor was our building zone.  I brought out three different building toys the library already owned and gave them a Star Wars twist.  Although I made a suggestion of what to build with the naming of each toy, I let the children build whatever they wanted. 

Death Star Straw Connector Trial – These Straw Connector toys are rather inexpensive and have come out in many library programs.

Lego Duplo Space Fighter Trial – We decided to use Duplos rather than everyday Legos because we were afraid children would never leave the Lego area.

Wood Blocks Moisture Evaporator Tower Trial – Children are always creative with a variety of wood blocks to play with. 

Reflections - I found that most children this age actually know very little about the Star Wars universe.  They might know some basic characters and star ships, but most have not seen any of the movies.  The parents on the other hand, they know all about Star Wars.  I think I had 5 different parents ask me if they could use the activities from this program in upcoming birthday parties for their kids.  I consider that type of request to be a compliment.