Our Hunger Games: Catching Fire Party

With the success of our Hunger Games Party last year, we couldn't resist doing a follow-up event when Catching Fire came out =D We featured some different activities, had a ton of people come down, and had a grand-old time. For those keeping score, many of my ideas came from the pins on my Pinterest Board, Hunger Games Party!!

Find Your Hunger Games Name

We wouldn't be able to start our event without knowing who we were, so we figured out what our "Hunger Games" names would be. We used one of those templates where you take pieces of your own name, throw in some funny sounding words, and wind up with a unique nomenclature. I'm Senpetra M. Standoak if you're wondering, and we used this picture from CatchMyParty as our template.

District Emblems

After we had our names we chose our district emblems. Bouncing by Michael's I found some small wooden discs we used as a back, printed out these district emblems, and then mod podged them together. Our finishing touch was self-adhesive clasps (that I also found at Michael's). This activity was inspired by g*rated.

Sustenance

Our tributes wouldn't have lasted long without some sustenance, so we had a crackers, cheese, and fruit spread,  served Arizona Iced Tea (because its delicious and seemed like a modern way to survive when you need energy lol), and also decorated Camouflage Cookies (granted, Peeta does more camouflaging in the first book, but the Morphlings do it in the second book, so I figured we were still legit).

DIY Bow and Arrows 

Once our introductions were out of the way, it was time for weapons training. One of our teen
members does some Live-Action Roll Playing (LARPing) in Spokane, WA, and he wanted to demonstrate the safety bow and arrows they use during combat. After his demonstration, we gave tributes a chance to make their own.

Inspired by this blog post from Sophie's World, we wound up using CPVC pipe I purchased at Lowe's for the bows themselves, and used bamboo stakes as the arrows. I was planning on using the bamboo for the bows, but they were too brittle. If you're going to do this activity, I would suggest using some of the elements from this Instructables (like cutting notches in the pipe to hold the string better).

The Arena

Finally, we actually had our tributes turn their skill and wiles against each other. Now don't panic too much. We didn't actually fight each other. We modified a game of Assassin to give it a more Hunger Games feel. We had everyone write a number on a piece of paper, and then they wore that number on a name tag. Every tribute drew a number that someone else wrote down, and that was the target they were tying to eliminate. As soon as they eliminated their target, they moved onto the tribute their target was targeting.

Instead of using Nerf weapons, we had everyone wear a construction paper bracelet secured with a single piece of tape. You eliminated your target by removing their bracelet (without touching any part of your target besides their bracelet, which leveled the playing field nicely). In keeping with the Hunger Games, after several eliminations we changed the rules so you could target anyone, not just the number you were assigned.

Mockingjay

I'm wondering what kind of fun we can have for the Mockingjay Pt. 1 debut...hhmmmm...

3 Ways to Make Paracord Survival Bracelets

So over the last couple years of doing programs, I've done Paracord Survival Bracelets a few times. Interestingly, each time I've used a different set of instructions. Now each one has their pros and cons, but I'm a huge fan of the most recent one I used. Check em out!!

1. Slide Release Buckle 

This was the first style that I used, but as it turns out, those slide buckles can be somewhat expensive. Noticing that, I just created a loop for the female end of the bracelet, and a big knot for the male end of the bracelet. This worked pretty well, but if the paracord stretches, the knot doesn't hold the bracelet together anymore. (I think this Instrutable has the best instructions for how to actually tie the cobra knots that make up your bracelet). 

2. Stretchable

When another Paracord program came up, I got really excited about this stretchable bracelet version. The basic idea is that you stretch it to get it on your hand instead of having a buckle or a knot. But, therein is also where we found the problem. The overall process of making the bracelet is the same, but to complete the bracelet you have to burn two ends of paracord together, and it isn't the easiest thing to do without burning yourself!! But, if you could keep your fingers from getting singed, this design could be really cool.

3. Loop and Knot: MY FAVE!!

Finally, at my most recent program I found this version, and it is my favorite by far. You still secure the bracelet with a loop and knot, but you have a length of cord that folds over and tightens the bracelet around your wrist. This makes it fit just the way you want it, without needing to buy any kind of fastener.

Our Hunger Games Party

So the weekend The Hunger Games movie opened, the Hayden Library held a Hunger Games party, and it was AWESOME! Turns out that I've had a lot to write about on my blog, so it took me this long to type up what we did.

As the teens arrived I had each one of them look up their Hunger Name. Basically the website randomly gives you a crazy name, what district you were from, when you participated in the Hunger Games, and how you died. It was a fun way to break the ice.

We then entered our training portion of the evening, which consisted of three stations. The points you received from these stations were added to the points your team got from the Cornucopia Challenge (chatting about that in a minute), and that determined how many times your name went into the drawing for the two movie tickets at the end of the night.

One station was archery (a plastic bow I bought from Fred Meyer), another station was javelin throwing (a pool noodle works really well), and our last station was getting across a pit of boiling goo (doesn't necessarily happen in the Hunger Games but I thought the game makers might have come up with something similar. Basically, you had to get from point A to point B without a part of you touching the floor. All that could touch the floor were two cardboard boxes. Some teens used them as stepping stones, while others shimmied their way across the floor).

In addition to the training portion, we also had provisions and creativity exercises. Our provisions consisted of frosted doughnut holes, which reminded us of the Capitol, and beef jerky, water, and trail mix which reminded us of the arena.

We had two creativity exercises. Katniss's mockingjay pin becomes a symbol of the rebellion, so we figured we would make some. We used Shrinky Dinks paper to trace a picture of the mockingjay, threw them in the oven, and they shrunk to hard medallions that were pretty cool. I purchased the Shrinky Dinks paper at my local Michaels.

Our other creativity exercise was making a Paracord Survial Bracelet. Now I couldn't find slide release buckles, so I made a couple knots instead of the male end of the clasp, and made a simple loop where the female end of the clasp was. I bought the paracord at Black Sheep Sporting Goods, and brought a small lighter from my house to burn the ends of the rope so it wouldn't unravel.

Once we had tested our creativity, battle readiness, and had some provisions, we were ready for our Cornucopia Challenge. Our participants were divided into teams with a huge pile of supplies in the center of a room. At the buzzer, one team member grabbed one item, brought it back to their team, then the next player took off to grab something else. Once the Cornucopia was pillaged, a script was read. If you had the right stuff for the script, you got points, and if you didn't, well, you didn't.

After the Cornucopia, the only thing left to do was tally the points, figure out how many names each participant got to put into our drawing (we did 1 name for each 100 points), and then we drew to see who got the movie tickets.

Our teens left with a medallion, the start of a survival bracelet (turns out they take some time to make), and memories of a great evening. If you haven't done one yet, I would highly suggest it for this movie, or when Catching Fire comes out :)

Duct Tape or Duck Tape? Either Way it Got Your Attention Right? lol

As many of you know, making stuff with Duct tape is awesome, and I couldn't resist doing a Duct

Tape Creations program anymore. So, we made Duct Tape wallets with Duck Tape brand tape and it was amazingly fun :)

We did this program for our Elementary (3-6 grade) and Middle School (6-8 grade) patrons. I hadn't actually created anything with Duct tape before, so I asked one of our Teen volunteers to sit in on our Middle School programs and give some pointers. I also took advantage of a couple websites that broke the whole process down for me. Enjoy :)
P.S. I found that only having 6 rolls of duct tape for 18 kiddos (what happened for our Elementary program) doesn't quite work out. It takes quite a while to get anything done because they had to wait so long for the duct tape. If I were to do it again, I'm thinking of having 1 roll of duct tape for every 2 people that are there. I would also have duplicates of the same colors so if one is over here, than one can be over there. Just some thoughts on the logistical side of things, and now to the websites. Pretty much I found a whole bunch of useful ideas on Instrutables and wikiHow.

Conventional Duct Tape Wallet

Just your straight up wallet.

Magic Duct Tape Wallet

If you put money into one side and close the wallet, it shows up on the other side.

Woven Duct Tape Wallet

Makes a really cool checkerboard kind of design for your wallet (the picture above).

Duct Tape Roses

A really simple way to make flowers that will last.

Realistic Duct Tape Roses

A slightly more complicated, but much more true to life, way to make a flower that will last.