Program: Wimpy Kid Party

This is the second year I've run a Wimpy Kid party in the fall. The series is insanely popular, so it seems logical to do programming to go along with it. This year, I held the party the day that book eight was released, which I think definitely helped build excitement. Here's what we did this year!

Magic dice - this was a free printable that I found somewhere on the Internet that I decided to use for this program. It directly related to book eight, when Greg realizes he's made some pretty bad decisions in his life so he begins using a Magic 8-ball to make all his decisions for him. I've seen homemade Magic 8-ball instructions in the past but they all seemed a bit too time consuming, so when I found a simple cut, fold, and glue magic die, I decided to go with that. The kids really liked asking it questions and rolling their dice to find out the answer.

Make your own comics - yes, we do this every time we have an event similar to this, but that's because the kids never get sick of doing it. They love making their own comics and it's very easy to set up!

Trivia - this year, I made a Wimpy Kid trivia PowerPoint and we played individually. I awarded Mom Bucks to kids for getting the right answers, as well as giving each kid Mom Bucks for attending and completing each craft. I also had my teens handing out Mom Bucks when they saw kids behaving well in the first half of the program (when we were doing the crafts). I made sure that the kids hung onto their Mom Bucks. Anyway, the trivia was pretty straightforward and I was impressed by how much the kids knew. I had one boy who I'm pretty sure knew the answer to every trivia question.

Giveaway - and this is why they needed to keep their Mom Bucks. I had them write their names on the back of all the Mom Bucks they had gotten throughout the program. We dropped them all into a bucket and pulled two lucky winners for a copy of the brand new book, just released that day. They were very excited about it. I also encouraged all the kids who didn't win to put their name on the holds list for our library copies, which my coworkers told me many of them did immediately after the program.

The kids really liked the Mom Bucks aspect of the program, with many of them taking them home as souvenirs. A successful and fun program, which I'm sure I'll do again when the next book arrives!