Tweens
Warrior Cats Party
Warrior Cats Party
The right group of tweens can be a breath of fresh librarianship air. They don't typically need your help cutting or putting together crafts (like the toddler whose caregiver mysteriously disappeared from the room), might strike up new friendships, and even offer new ways to interact with the activities. This is even more likely when you present a fandom program, such as celebrating the Warriors series by Erin Hunter.
The promotional blurb for this program was: "Calling all Warrior Cats! Join us for adventures, crafts, trivia, and snacks, plus discover which Warrior Clan you belong in. For kids entering grades 5 through 6."
Laptops were set up ahead of time so "apprentices" could take the Find Your Warrior Clan quiz as they entered the room. Once their Clan had been determined they found their cat name using this Name Generator and filled out a nametag. Next up, they created these personalized cuffs complete with Clan symbol. Toilet paper tubes were cut and spray painted ahead of time to act as cuffs and the tweens colored in a symbol and glued it to their cuffs.
Next they were split into 3 groups (mostly based on clan) to complete 3 tasks: ridding the den of "dirt" (a plastic kiddie pool filled with rice krispies and hidden tootsie rolls), fishing in the pond (using chopstick claws to fish swedish fish out of a bowl of water while being timed for speed and to see who can get the largest catch), and making cardstock cat masks. HelloKids.com has a great cat mask template which I used to create this two masks per page printable.
The apprentices were then tasked with hunting the library for lost kittens and kills (prey). Printed out pictures of kittens, mice, snakes, and birds were hidden throughout the building. For added fun, Clan symbols were drawn on each picture denoting which territory it was in. Apprentices could only make kills and take kittens that belonged to their Clan's territory.
Apprentices decorated cupcakes to look like cat faces (frosting with twizzler whiskers, M&M eyes, graham cracker ears) and feasted while being quizzed on a variety of Warriors trivia.
After an hour, our time was up, but our librarian hearts soared as many of the tweens stuck around the library to conduct more hunts and pretend battles.