Our Wibbly Wobbly Doctor Who Party

Just in case you couldn't tell from my Pinterest board, I love Doctor Who! All the whovians who attended our Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Doctor Who Party apparently also share my affection for our favorite Time Lord =D
If you would like more information on any of these activities, you can check out the Program Outline I put together for our Youth Services Resource page.

Snacks
Adipose Marshmallows (I must admit, I had to look the Adipose up...)
Apples with Faces (we just used some plastic knives to carve the faces)
Fishsticks and Custard (pound cake rolled in butter, dipped in Vanilla pudding)
Arizona Iced Tea (or you could brew some actual tea to be more authentic)

Crafts/Activities 
Duct Tape Bow Tie (because bow ties are cool)
Sonic Screwdriver Pens (because your night wouldn't be complete with some whirring sound effects)
Tardis Cubee Folding Craft (printing these on cardstock would probably work best)
Gallifreyan Nametags (use the spiffy application to print customized nametags)

Games
Weeping Angel Tag (use a flashlight to stop those Weeping Angels in their tracks)
Weeping Angel Tag Alternate (point to make them stop, run when the gamemaster says "Blink")
Empty Child Tag (don't let those empty children touch you)
Doctor Who Matching Game (The Doctors, their catchphrases, popular companions, and baddies)

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...

Gelatin Printing: Making Some Legit Posters

So I originally found this idea on Pinterest, but it comes from the blog of Cassie Stephens. Long story short, you make a batch of unflavored gelatin, you put ink on the gelatin, put some leaves on top of the ink, and when you put paper on top of that, you get a cool silhouette poster because the leaves don't let the ink get to some parts of the paper.

Originally I was going to do that exact idea, but then I started thinking that the participants might want to create their own silhouettes. So, I gave them some paper, stencils and scissors, and let them create the shapes we applied to the gelatin.

Cassie suggested a printmaking brayer to spread the ink, but we found we could also spread the ink using a ruler. You can obviously buy printing ink at a craft store, but we had library stamp replacement ink available, and that seemed to work.

P.S. When you are planning your shapes, be aware of their orientation. It'll wind up as an inverted image when it is applied to the paper, as our LIZARD poster attests to. The top image is what the poster looked like, and the bottom image is the shape we applied to the gelatin.

Infographics: Make Your Own!

Has anybody noticed that Infographics are everywhere? Now don't get me wrong. I love infographics. In fact, I have a Pinterest board full of them. But have you ever wondered what it would take to make one of those? Luckily easel.ly and infogr.am make it remarkably simple and free (if you set up an online account at no charge) =D

Easel.ly

From what I've seen, this program does a really nice job making visually and aethetically pleasing infographics. You can change the size and shape of the font, the graphics, and the clip art. While there are plenty of templates to choose from, you can also start from scratch.

Infogr.am

Instead of focusing on the visual side of an infographic, this site focuses on the data side. You can either enter data onto the website which will change the graphs and visuals it makes for you, or you can upload data from a document that will change the graphs as well. Pretty cool, no?

Now, I haven't had the time to make an infographic using these sites, but this video does a nice job of explaining and showing these services step-by-step. Thank you Kathy Ishazuka from TheDigitalShift for making it. Enjoy!

Book Hedgehogs: Altered Books Again

So last year, we had our first experience with Altered Books by making collages. This year, we played with altered books again, but made some Book Hedgehogs instead.

Now, before you get too impressed with me, I didn't come up with this idea. I just stole it hehe. I do find that I can be moderately creative. But, there are so many people out there that are extraordinarily creative that I just bask in the awesomeness of their ideas.

I saw some pictures of Avengers Book Hedgehogs on Pinterest, so I looked up directions for them on Google. The website, Cut Out + Keep, gave some easy-to-follow instructions.

Basically, you take a book around 100 pages long (or chop up a book until it is about 100 pages long), fold a page in half, and then fold the corners down into triangles. Once you've done it once, you keep going until the entire book looks like ours =D

Now, that might seem incredibly boring, but our library participants had a great time with it. They were thrilled with the final results, and they were chatting up a storm while they were making them. Ultimately, the kids being able to provide their own conversation while folding made the program work, but the finished hedgehogs are also totally worth it!

Darth Vader and Son: What if Vader raised Luke? LOL!

Darth Vader and Son by Jeffrey Brown

Why did I read it?

I popped into work today, my second day after a two-week vacation, and my boss was checking in some new books. I recognized some of the artwork from some posts on Pinterest, and I couldn't resist reading it.

What happened?

Anybody remember Star Wars? Everybody right! =D

Well, instead of Darth Vader being reunited with his long lost son and having some problems, imagine Darth Vader raising Luke Skywalker instead.

Now, imagine that this is actually in a comic strip format and its actually for laughs instead of a serious story.

You would be imagining Darth Vader and Son, and you would be laughing a part of your body clean off!

What did I like or not like?

This collection of strips isn't very long, but it is so worth it! The author did an excellent job taking all of the quintessential lines from Star Wars, and working them into a comic situation between Darth Vader and a four-year-old Luke Skywalker.

As an example to whet your appetite, this is one of the ones I really liked:

Darth Vader is looking over the shoulder of his young son, and demands, "Luke, why aren't you ready for school? I'm here to put you back on schedule. Perhaps I can find new ways to motivate you."

Obviously it's so much better with the illustrations, but that gives you a taste of this witty collection of awesomeness :)

Messy Experiments!

So science experiments are some of our most popular programs, and one of our most popular science experiments programs is Messy Experiments. Why? Because its awesome!

As I've mentioned before, I love Steve Spangler, and these are the ones I stole this time :)

Diet Coke Mentos Geyser

If you drop a handful of Mentos into a full 2-liters of Diet Coke, you get a fabulously sticky and awesome geyser that goes about 20 feet up! Can't stress the fun and awesomeness of this one hehe.

Color Changing Milk 

Drop some food coloring into some milk, and then dip some dish-washing soap (I use Dawn) into the milk. The milk isn't a big fan of the dawn, so the colored milk runs away from the soap. Cool stuff!

Quicksand Goo (or Oblique)

If you add corn starch and water together in the right proportions, it will be hard if you hit it, but soft if you slide through it. Awesome!

Vinegar and Baking Soda...with a twist

If you put a layer of baking soda in a container, and then drop colored vinegar onto it, it smokes and leaves a cool design. Try it! I thought this was a fun twist on the vinegar and baking soda experiments that you normally see. Got this idea from Pinterest :)

Pop Rockets

Last but not least, get some old 35mm film canisters, put some water and alka-selzer into them, and watch what happens. Experiment with changing the level of water, the amount of alka-selzer, and the temperature of the water.

Pinterest: Your Interests in a Picture Social Network

So, something that has come across my radar recently is Pinterest, and I have to say that I am a fan.

Pinterest is a new social media fad that was originally popular with crafters and do-it-yourselfers. This social network allows you to create a "board" and then "pin" pictures to it. Your board could be "Books Worth Reading" (my first board of pins lol) and each one would be filled with pictures with a short description underneath them.

The thing that makes this different than other social networks is the focus on pictures instead of text. It also cites the web page that you got the picture from automatically.

If you have interests that would look cool in a picture format, or you just want to browse what others have set up, take a look at Pinterest.