Winter Wonderland Party

I hosted this event in January, but you could also do it in December or February. 

We read a few wintry books: Fox Versus Winter by Corey R. Tabor, Out Cold by Ryan T. Higgins, and Cold Turkey by Corey Rosen Schwartz and Kirsti Call. 

We had a snowball fight with fake snowballs. I got them from Amazon. 

We built snowmen with Play-Doh and accessories from Amazon. 

We went ice skating indoors using wax paper as skates on the carpet. 

We went on a Winter Animals Scavenger Hunt. I used a free clipart set from Teachers Pay Teachers. Find it here. 

I sent the kids home with plenty of activities: 

• I Spy Snowmen (Paper Trail Design)
• Coloring Page from Out Cold (Publisher's Website)
• Spiral Snowman Craft (krokotak)
• Winter Bear Coloring Page (krokotak)
• Recipes for snow dough, white play dough, and salt dough. The first two are from Imagination Tree (my favorite source for play dough recipes) and the last is from Unsophisticook. 

Monthly Scavenger Hunts

Right before the world changed in 2020, I had started having a scavenger hunt as one of the activities at my library programs. I think the firsts were my 2018 Dr. Seuss Party and my 2018 Pete the Cat Party. During my 2021 Summer Program (held outside), so many children told me they remembered the scavenger hunts from the parties and missed doing them. 

I decided to create monthly scavenger hunts in the kids section. I've used book characters, book covers (Dr. Seuss and poetry books), but my favorite is using free clipart sets from Teachers Pay Teachers. I try to be intentional when planning the hunts and focus on these concepts: colors, shapes, emotions, numbers, and alphabet. 

A few of my favorite creators on Teachers Pay Teachers are Rainbow Sprinkle Studio - Sasha Mitten, P4 Clips Trioriginals, and Krista Wallden - Creative Clips Clipart. 

To create the scavenger hunt: I select the theme, print and laminate the hunt pieces, create a hunt sheet and a sign for display in the branches. I also curate an activity packet. krokotak, Paper Trail Design, and Monday Mandala are some of my favorite sources of activities. If needed I label the hunt pieces. This usually needs to happen with colors as there are never 12 unique colors. One of our branch assistants is colorblind so this also helps her and I've seen parents working with kids on letter recognition during the hunts. 

I'm just now started to recycle my hunts. November's hunt is from 2023 and December's is from 2022. 

I've been doing the monthly scavenger hunts since September 2021. Average monthly participation across four library branches has went from 70 in 2021 to 213 in 2025. 

Weekly Lego Challenges

Prior to 2020, I was hosting a Lego Club at my library branches as least three times per year. The pandemic changed that and weekly Lego challenges were my way of still engaging children with STEM learning even if we couldn't meet in person. 

I've continued with the Lego challenges even though I'm hosting in-person events again. There are some children who will likely never attend a library program for various reasons: scheduling, transportation, etc. These Lego challenges help conquer those barriers to access. 

The challenges post to our library Facebook pages and groups on Friday mornings at 10:00am. They are also posted in the library branches. I get a few emails from parents, but mostly I hear stories about how the kids always know to ask what the challenge is on Fridays. 

I use Canva to create the images and a variety of sources to create the challenges. Brownielocks, Holiday Insights, and even Wikipedia (search the date) are my favorites. I will also use my storytime themes. Challenges usually fall into a few broad categories: animal, food, color, number of pieces. 

I don't see myself stopping these anytime soon. The ability to schedule posts makes the challenges easy to maintain. 

Mini Ren Faire for Teens

One of my former library teens now a library employee talked me into hosting this event. In the end, it turned out well, but the decorating took a lot of time and we had too many activities for the two hours. 

The decorations were simple: I borrowed castle wall curtains from a friend and we used these to cover most of a history mural in the library's meeting room. Black table cloths, parchment paper signs, battery operated candles, a few candle holders, and some burlap. 

The Snacks (The Tavern): Pickles, Olives, Cheese, Crackers, Assorted Dried Fruit, Chessman Cookies, Apple Cider (Apple Juice), Root Beer, Ginger Ale

Arrival Activities

• Shakespearean or Medieval Insults
• Shakespeare Insult Generator by brendan kelso on Teachers Pay Teachers 
• Make Your Own Medieval Insult by Sense of Wonder on Teachers Pay Teachers 
• Trivia: Ed Sheeran or Shakespeare: The Tempest Quotes Game by Matthew Jenkins on Teachers Pay Teachers 
• Name Generators (found on Pinterest: Dragon Name x4, Enchanted Forest Name, Heroic Name, Tournament Name, Royal Name x2, Fairy Name, Fantasy Name, Woodland Fairy)

Gaming:

• Dice Games: Raffle, Zara, Hazard, Passage
• Other Games: Queek, Nine Men’s Morris, Fox and Geese, The Game of the Goose

Here There Be Dragons Crafts

• Dragon Eggs (Styrofoam eggs and thumbtacks)
• Dragon Eyes (instructions from Craft Your Happiness)

Armory Crafts

• Make Your Own Sword (dowels, pool noodles)
• Make Your Own Shield (flat cardboard, markers; see Coat of Arms Printable from Happy Strong Home) 

Coloring

• Medieval Designs & Stained Glass from Dover Publications free samples
• Medieval designs from Color Our Collections 

We also had a scavenger hunt devised by the library teen turned employee. 

Life Size Sorry Redux

I've been playing Life Size Sorry with my library teens since 2014. I first blogged about it here. 

Last year I decided to give my original set up a face lift. I use the game pieces from this free clipart set on Teachers Pay Teachers from P4 Clips Trioriginals so I matched my color scheme to those and created a new board layout in PowerPoint. I think it looks much better. I don't laminate the pieces for two reasons. First, it makes them more of a slip hazard. Second, I'd have to clean them each time and I'm much too busy for that. 

When we played this summer, I modified the rules so you could move from start on any forward moving card. This sped the game up nicely and kept the teens from getting bored. 

Halloween Party

I hosted this party in 2023 as my special event day for one of my libraries fell on Halloween. 

We played a few games. 

Halloween Bingo from ZippyGrove on Etsy

Pin the Spider on the Web from Ella Claire and Co

Pumpkins Scavenger Hunt (of my own devising using several free clipart sets on Teachers Pay Teachers)

We read a few books: There's a Ghost in This House by Oliver Jeffers, The Dark by Lemony Snicket, and Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds. 

For our craft, we made paper spiderwebs using a free resource from TeachStarter. 

I had a couple of things for the kids to take home: Funky Bat Halloween Craft from TeachStarter and Activity Sheets for There's a Ghost in This House. 

11 kids attended. Counting adults the total attendance was 17. I would definitely do this program again. 

Shark Week Party

Shark Week is a popular event and it seemed like a good idea to use it for a teen library program. I've hosted this event twice: 2015 and 2022. The parties are similar, but I like to think my planning style has become more streamlined. 

Snack are a big party of a Shark Week Party. They are themed and we had the following: 

• Shark Teeth (Bugles)
• Sour Watermelon Sharks 
• Goldfish 
• Life Preservers (gummy ring candy)
• Shark Fins (tortilla chips)
• Chum (salsa)
• Swedish Fish

We played the following games:

• Hit the Shark  as suggested by Bryce (shark target, pool noodles for spears)
• Shark Bite 
• Sharks vs. Dolphins 
• Shark Scavenger Hunt (I used the Shark Matching Game from Natural Beach Living.)

All in all a simple, but very fun party for teens.

I Survived Event

The I Survived book series by Lauren Tarshis continues to be a very popular series at my library so I decided to host an I Survived Event in April this year. Many librarians have done this before. I took a deep dive into their events and picked what would work best for me logistically. 

The event featured three books: 

• I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, 79 A.D.
• I Survived the San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
• I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912

At the beginning of the party I had the kids vote on which book they'd like me to read the first chapter of. After 4 parties, I'd read the first chapter in all three books. 

We then moved on to the activities. I had three stations set up.

• Volcano Blast: Build a volcano and watch it erupt. 
• Earthquake Challenge: Build a Lego house and see if it can withstand an earthquake. 
• S.O.S. Titanic: Build a boat that can float with and without passengers. 

For details about the supplies, procedures, and resources, see the post on my Storytime by Bridget site. 

Squishmallow Party

Pop culture parties are almost always a hit at my libraries and this Squishmallow Party was no different. I hosted four parties in March. Total attendance was 151 and of that 92 were children. 

The party started with a Show and Tell Your Squish session. Two of the parties had a large number of children (31 and 37) so I had to pivot a bit. Building on the storytime song "If You're Wearing Red Today," I had a look at the Squishmallows and then had the kids stand up and do some actions based on their Squishmallows. For example, if your Squishmallow is a cat, stand up and toss your Squish in the air. I shared a bit from the book Squishmallows: The Official Collectors Guide. For smaller numbers of children, I had a Squish Toss game planned. Three turns to get your squish into 3 buckets. (Note: these will need some weight added to them if you don't want to be constantly resetting the game)

We then moved onto the craft segment of the party. I considered several options, but knew I needed to keep the craft time at about 15 minutes. The other options I considered were design your own Squishmallow (drawing and coloring) or paint a Squishmallow. I stumbled upon some Make-a-Face Sticker Books from Dollar Tree that reminded me of Squishmallows. These were created by The Clever Factory and I used the Animals and Funny Foods. I ran low at some point and supplemented with Beary Fun and Caticorns. Each sticker book had 6 pages. (Note: I'm saving the leftover stickers for another project...maybe design a creature with my teens.) This was a super simple craft. I provided copy paper and each kid got to pick 1 sticker page to make.

After crafting, there was a photo op in the room. I used cute wrapping paper for the backdrop and banners I got on Teachers Pay Teachers from Hot Mess Homeschool Mama. 

Once every one was done crafting and taking pictures, we went on a Squishmallow Bigfoot hunt in the children's section of the library. I used table numbers from Alt-3 Academics on Teachers Pay Teachers to create a very simple scavenger hunt. 

After the hunt, I sent kids home with an activity packet that included the following: 

• Squishmellow Roll and Draw (Art Workshop on Teachers Pay Teachers)
• Design Your Own Squishmallow Worksheet (Miss Buchko's Art Room Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers)
• Color Scarlet the Strawberry, Sunny the Bee, and Wendy the Frog (Monday Mandala)

Princess in Black Party

The Princess in Black series (PIB) is quite popular at my libraries so I decided to host a party in February. I took a deep dive into the books and a couple of parties other libraries had hosted to plan mine. 

Upon arrival guests were invited to find their Princess or Prince name by drawing a flower name out of a basket and then writing it on a name tag. I used the calling cards from Flower Power Bingo from Drag Drop Learning Games on Teachers Pay Teachers for the names. (I had previously purchased the game for another event.)

Then we immediately started crafting so the guests would be ready for all the games and activities. I had three different crafts: 

• Make Your Own Tiara: this idea was from the PIB Event Kit. The crown template was from First Palette. I provided jewel stickers from Dollar Tree to decorate the tiaras. 
• Make Your Own Wand: this idea as from Katherine's party post of the YSS Blog. I provided dowels, stickers, laser cut wooden shapes, and jewel stickers. I also had hot glue for assembling. 
• Make Your Own Glitter-Stone Ring: this idea was from the PIB Event Kit. I used leftover kits from my past Fancy Nancy Parties. The kits contain two buttons and a piece of pipe cleaner. Once that was assembled, the guests could add a jewel sticker to their rings. 

For the games we had the following:

• Monster Battle and Goat Rescuing: this idea was also from Katherine's party post of the YSS Blog. Six monsters and six goats were hidden around the room for the guests to battle and rescue. 
• Crepe Paper Races: This was my own idea. We used a theme of Princesses vs. Heroes and used pink crepe paper for the Princess team and black crepe paper for the Heroes team. The first team to wrap their designated person from head to toe in crepe paper was the winner. 
• Princess in Black Heroes Scavenger Hunt: Another idea that was my own. I used illustrations from the books and created a scavenger hunt that included all the characters as heroes. This was fifteen so many a few too many for a party that was about an hour. 

I had the following activities for the guests to take home:

• Coloring Page (My First Book Club)
• Make Your Own Monster (PIB Event Kit)
• Superhero Identity (PIB Event Kit)

For more ideas you can also download a party kit from the PIB website or a teacher's guide from the publisher's website. 

Mouse & Friends Party

I hosted this event at all my libraries last summer as our final event of the season before I took a much needed break. 

The event started with a storytime. Here's that outline: 

• Listening Song: “If You Want to Hear a Story”
• Book: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
• Flannel Board Activity: If You Give…
• Book: If You Give a Pig a Party by Laura Numeroff
• Activity: Animal Movement Cards (Juni Printables on Teachers Pay Teachers)
• Book: If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff
• Flannel Board: Ice Cream
• Activity: Dinosaur Movement Cards (Cassie @ 3Dinosaurs.com)
• Book: If You Give a Mouse a Brownie by Laura Numeroff

After storytime there were games and a craft.

We made Party Pigs. This idea was inspired by Pinterest, but I couldn't find a resource link.

We played Keep It Up with balloons. 

We went on a Mouse and Friends Scavenger Hunt. 

Finally, I sent the kids home with lots of activities. They are listed below. 

• Sweet Stories (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)
• What’s a Party without Cake? (If You Give a Pig a Party)
• Color Cat’s Cupcakes (If You Give a Cat a Cupcake)
• Make Your Own Sweet Story (If You Give a Dog a Donut)
• Beyond the Brownie (If You Give a Mouse a Brownie)
• All the above are from https://mousecookiebooks.com/.
• Suggest a Title… (Created by me)
• Why Does Mouse Get to Go Everywhere? (Created by me)

154 people attended my four parties. Of the 154, 94 were children. A very successful event that I will definitely repeat in the future. If you're interested I previously blogged about this event back in 2013.