Tuesday, March 28, 2017

School-Age Special Event: Peep Fest

This past weekend we did "Peep Fest" celebrating the wildly popular marshmallow treats, Peeps! It was a program that I allowed several of my teen volunteers to work on, throughout the Spring, coming up with activities/crafts (with my guidance). 

I only told them, prior to giving the planning over to them, that I envisioned the kids making catapults and using them to catapult the peeps.

1. CRAFTS
We had two crafts at our event: Catapults using jumbo popsicle sticks AND peep houses.

1a. Catapults
One of the items the teens spent time deciding on was the best type of catapult to have the school-age kids create. After trying a variety of different catapults using materials we had in the library to test with, they settled on a catapult that used jumbo craft sticks, rubber bands, and plastic spoons.

Materials (we made kits in baggies to hand out to the kids):
10 Jumbo Craft Sticks
6 Rubber Bands
1 Plastic Spoon



1b. Peep Houses
One of the various craft ideas that I shared with the teens was Peep houses. They tried a couple other ideas out before settling on this one, deciding it would be the easiest to do at the event. I got a great template off the internet from Say Not Sweet Anne of Little Peep Birdhouses. They were PERFECT for the event. 

I printed the templates off on grey cardstock. My teens cut them out before the event and then put them in plastic bags as kits to hand out with a strip of glue dots. The kids could color them at the Peep Houses station and then put them together.



2. ACTIVITIES
The teens settled on two different activities to have at their event. Once everyone was done making the crafts, we took everyone outside to participate. We're fortunate enough to have a large field outside of our library and the weather was beautiful so we were able to catapult Peeps outside and not in the library!

2a. Target Practice
We have some bowling pins and the teens made rabbit ears and stuck them to the pins. The kids could use the pins as targets and attempt to knock them over.

2b. Bucket Challenge
We have several plastic buckets. The teens laid them out at that station and the kids practiced trying to get their Peeps to land in the buckets.



NOTES:
I LOVED this event and am SO doing it again next year. The kids had a blast (teens and the attendees both) and so did I! The parents loved it too! The field was full of kids and parents and, even if they did not have a set activity to do with the Peeps they were having fun just launching the Peeps in the air. It was a huge hit and so much fun all around!

No comments:

Post a Comment