Alice in Wonderland Event

I planned this event for ages 7-12 as part of our Dig Into Reading Summer Reading Program. I thought Wonderland fit the theme as it's "down the rabbit hole."

I found inspiration from many places for this event. They include  Abby the Librarian’s Mad Hatter Tea Party Plan, Amy’s Mad Hatter Tea Party Plan, Post from PUBYAC, my own Mad Hatter Tea Party from last year, "March Hare" chapter from Lithgow Party Paloozas!, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland party plan from Storybook Parties by Penny Warner & Liya Lev Oertel.

The event lasted about one and a half hours.

 

The tea party was first. I served cookies, cheese crackers, lemonade, and green tea. As they were eating, I read some poetry from the original Alice books.

After eating we moved on to the craft portion. We made two crafts: Mad Hatter Hats and Mome Raths. The idea for the Mad Hatter hats came from a post on the now defunct Imaginary Librarian blog. The Mome Raths came from here and I used the adaptations that Amy suggested.

 

After the crafts, it was time for some games. First, we had a Caucus Race. I played the song from the Disney Animated film and the kids raced around the room. Then we had a dormouse hunt. I had a stuffed mouse hidden under one of twenty four cups. After that we did a card toss. The kids tried to toss playing cards into a straw hat. We also played ninepins or lawn bowling which was as close to croquet as I could come.

 

 

I held three of these events during July with a total attendance of 19. Of that number, 11 were children. After the low attendance, I wish I had just used the event as one of my weekly themes.