May the Fourth Be With You!

And also with you. HaHa! That’s a joke Catholics will get (and perhaps other religions?).

Anyway May 4th is just one day away. Also know as Star Wars Day, since the play on the date with one of the iconic lines: May the Fourth Be With You. In libraries, this provides us an opportunity to develop programming around this pop culture phenomenon. When I did some research to find some crafts to do this year, I noticed it was a lot of the same things, over and over again. Eventually we found a couple new ideas. Then on this awesome Facebook Group: Storytime Underground, someone posted asking for ideas for Star Wars Day.

With that treasure trove of ideas, I wanted a way to easily preserve and access them, so voila! Here’s a post with what my library is doing this year and a round up with other ideas. Enjoy! If you have some additional ideas, add them in the comments!

Crafts

We frequently do crafts as a passive program. We have a table papered so the table doesn’t get messy. We keep instructions and things like glue sticks, markers, scissors, basically whatever tools they’ll need to do the craft, on the table. The pieces for the craft we keep at our service desk and kids just ask us for one craft. Sometimes we have the pieces altogether in a Ziploc bag. If there isn’t many pieces, we will just hand the kids what they need. Here are the crafts we are doing for Star Wars Day:

Yoda Puppet. The idea for this came from Coffee Cups and Crayons. It is a really fun take on Yoda and so easy to make. This puppet is made with a green, dessert-size paper plate; green construction paper ears; a big craft stick; a glue dot; two googley eyes and a sharpie. Last year we did Yoda ear headbands and we still had some ears left, which were perfect for this craft. I love reusing things!! I can’t take credit for the instructions, our interns, Jenny or Lexi, did that. They are amazing and we couldn’t do half the stuff we do without them.

Porg Bookmark. This idea came from Creative Green Living. Isn’t it so cute!?!? They actually made their version a valentine that opens and you can leave a sweet note to a friend. They include a free printable too. We just made it a bookmark, so it doesn’t open. We used our CriCut machine to make the hearts out of cardstock and the black circles for the eyes. Love our CriCut! We used two different size hole punchers to cut the pupils. Glue sticked all the paper together and used a marker to draw on the mouth. I cannot take credit for making this example. It was also done by one of our interns; I think it was Lexi.

Scavenger Hunt

If we ever stopped doing scavenger hunts, there would be a pitchforks-flame-torches riot on our hands. Kids love them! We don’t do them all the time, but usually around holidays or school breaks. We print out characters with names underneath them and laminate them. Then we tape them all over the youth department. They can be on walls, on the bookcases, on the backs of tables, etc. Once a kiddo finds one they have to write the character’s name on their sheet. We hang 20, but they only have to find 15 to get a prize. We have small prizes like stickers, tattoos, pencils, sometimes party favor type prizes or candy. It just depends on the hunt.

Star Wars Hunt. Naturally we had to do a Star Wars hunt. The above picture shows some of the characters we will be hanging up and the sheet we give the kiddos to write the characters’ names on. I think these were all done by my coworker, Chelsea. For prizes we have stickers and pencils that were leftover from last year, so I don’t know where we got them from. Most likely Amazon. We also got this party favor set from Oriental Trading.

Pilot Flight Training Game. This idea I got from Jbrary. They have some other Stars Wars ideas in this post as well. I made this Death Star with silver wrapping paper which I found at Party City. I taped it on a hula hoop we had from another event. I traced a sand bucket on the back for the hole and cut it out with an exacto knife. Using Jbrary picture as a guide, I drew the squares on with a black Crayola marker. I could erase those lines with a wet paper towel. Once I was happy with the spacing I went back with a ruler and a sharpie to redo the lines. Finally I made grey paint and painted in between the boxes. On Saturday morning I’ll hang it from our ceiling. Intern Lexi made some paper airplanes and the kiddos will get to try to throw them through the whole for their “pilot training”. I won’t have any prizes, it’ll just be a game they can have fun with.

Those four activities is everything we are doing in the youth department. For all ages, we are doing a Star Wars marathon of the original trilogy. We will also have free popcorn, cucpcakes and drinks for those watching the movie.

Other Star Wars Ideas

• Jbrary has an additional post about Star Wars activities.
• Abdo Books has a free Star Wars event guide. You just have to download it.
• We recently had a guest do preschool storytime and he did this Darth Vader Puppet. Very similar to our Yoda Puppet.
• BB-8 Paper Plate Craft
• Stephanie in the Storytime Underground Facebook group suggested mini lightsabers with neon straws and tin foil at the bottom for the handle.
• Along with that Eve posted in Storytime Underground to make lightsaber keychains with neon straws, duct tape, a paperclip and a keychain clip.
• Origami Yoda and other origami characters from Tom Angleberger’s Origami Yoda series. Bonus points for this because it directly relates to a book series!!
• Jedi Robes made out of a paper bag from Birthday in a Box!
• Crayon Resistant Death Star
• Glow Stick Lightsaber
• Monica posted in Storytime Underground a recycled DVD/CD Death Star. Here is what she posted, “Coat both sides of discarded DVD’s/CDs with acrylic paint or black flue( mix black paint with white Elmer’s glue)
  Let each child etch the lines of the Death Star into the black paint like scratch art, tooth picks or popsicle sticks work, cover the hole in the center with a circle of black tissue paper, attach a string of fishing line on the top hang in front of window or shine flashlight and it looks lit up.”
• Heather posted in Storytime Underground Rescuing Han Solo from Carbonite. Here is what she said, “I use mini pictures of Han Solo on laminated cardstock, put them in ice cube trays for a mold, mix up baking soda and water, freeze, and then give the kids vinegar to free him.”
• Yoda Shape Craft
• A couple people in the group suggested making your own droids. Just give the kiddos some supplies like cups, pipe cleaners, stickers, markers, googley eyes and let them go crazy.

Whew this is a lot of great ideas! I just have two more things I wanted to share with you guys.

1. If you do a storytime, I highly recommend Are You Scared, Darth Vader by Adam Rex. This book is good for kids and great for adult Star Wars fans. I got this autograph copy from Barnes and Noble. According to that link above, they still have some autograph copies you can buy!

2. If you are in need of May The Fourth Be With You clothing, you have to check out Out Of Print. They took the Star Wars Read posters from the 90s and put them on tshirts! Plus they have other great Star Wars stuff. This will take you to all their Star Wars merch. Here is the shirt I got for Saturday.

Well that’s everything I have got! If you have anymore fun ideas for a Star Wars event please add it to the comments. The last Star Wars Movie comes out in December so if you aren’t celebrating May the Fourth Be With You, maybe some of the ideas can come in handy for a December event.

May the Force be with you!