Star Wars Reads Day Program Ideas

Star Wars Reads Day is one of my favorite “unofficial” holidays in library world. I get to let my geekiness come out and share all the fun of Star Wars with my tweens and teens, and just spend the day having a blast! It doesn’t matter if you’re a public, school, or academic library, you can still celebrate this epic day with special activities and events around your library. Pinterest is a wonder for inspiration- from being able to take other librarians’ ideas and adapting them to your own to taking someone’s blog post for their child’s birthday party and running with it, there are tons of ideas that you can take and twist for your own Sith side.

Get in on the fun and let the force guide you! Here are some of my favorite Star Wars Reads Day Program Ideas.

FOOD

I love having food at big events for tweens and teens. I very rarely have food for my programs due to budget issues, so when I do a really big program theme, I want to do it HUGE! There are a variety of different ways you can serve up food Cantina Style-

Light Sabers made from pretzel rods, colored chocolate, and colored sugar

Over at Denna’s Ideas, she has the most awesome ideas for TIE fighters made of graham crackers, melted chocolate, and marshmallows and cups of gummy bears as Edible Ewoks.
Or on Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons, there are pictures of Ewokookies. For the healthier side there’s a Yodalicious Fruit and Storm Trooper Dip.
Then again, if you have a bakery that you can get a deal with, you can always send them pictures from the Star Wars Party Pinterest Board of your favorites. I’ve gotten some of the cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma and had fun making sandwiches for nieces and nephews but the detailed icing on these takes way more patience than I have.
Even if you aren’t in the mixing/baking/hunt-down mood, you can easily create a Star Wars buffet will creative naming and a small budget. Get cheese poof balls or anything round and label them as Death Stars. Anything bear shaped can be related to Ewoks. Rolled up fruit can be Jedi Rations. Trail mix can be Wookie Treats. Any fruit can be renamed for various planets within the movies.

However, one of the biggest hits I’ve ever done was flavored chocolate molds. You can take any silicone mold (supposedly made for ice cubes but how boring is that?) and pour melted chocolate into them. If you gently add in good quality extracts (orange, cherry, and peppermint are the favorites around here) after the chocolate is tempered, you can even have flavored chocolates in any shape imaginable. And while they don’t look like it, these mold shapes will hold a LOT of chocolate, so each tween or teen will have a chocolate explosion waiting for them.

DECORATIONS

Depending on your space and/or budget you can have a ton of decorations or none at all- I’ve found that I can throw a lot into decorating for something yet my tweens and teens couldn’t care less. There are tons of options at the local party supply store and big box stores, but here are a few of my go-to favorites:

Anthony Herrera is wonderful and creative and more talented than I could ever be. He is an inspiring artist, and among his many talents has created STAR WARS SNOWFLAKES. I am not kidding. These things, with cuts and folds, will pop out in images of Darth Vader, TIE Fighters, AT-AT Walkers, and others. Get some teens or volunteers together a few days before your event, and have them go at it: http://www.anthonyherreradesigns.com/index.php/8-ahd-blog/8-star-wars-snowflakes-2013
Da Font is an excellent site for free fonts to use with Publisher, Adobe and other programs. They have an ever growing collection of fonts, and most are free for non-commercial use (always credit the creator, please). Even if you want to pay for a commercial font, the price is usually $5-$10, much less expensive than some of the professional packs out there. Do a search for “galaxy” or “far away” or “jedi” and you can come up with a huge variety of lettering to use for posters and promotions.
If you can find it, The Star Wars Party Book by Chronicle is awesome. Or any of the Star Wars cookbooks. However, the Party Book is the best. Published in 2002, it’s now a rarity and is probably only found through ILL, but so worth it if you can get it.

ACTIVITIES

There is so much you can do with a Star Wars Reads Day program- however, the one thing you CANNOT do is show the 6 movies. They are NOT licensed under ANY umbrella license, so do NOT lose your job over it. Double check if you want, but I’ve worked under both the major ones, and they’ve never been covered. Hopefully with the new movies coming out under Disney that might change, but for now, be safe and plan to show the cartoons that are covered under your license.

Games

There are so many games you can undertake within the Star Wars theme. For example:

Pin the Light Saber on Yoda/Darth Vader/Darth Sith
Don’t drop the Yoda from over on a Lemon Squeezey Home
Lego Star Wars on various console gaming systems (Wii, PS3, etc.)
Pass the Death Star (Hot Potato to Star Wars Music)
Death Star Musical Chairs
Jedi training course (set up an obstacle course around your area using balloons, streamers, chairs and other objects, then time the Jedi recruits on their abilities to get through them all in the fastest time)
Star Wars Monopoly
Star Wars themed scavenger hunts
Themed Lego builds
Star Wars Kinect (XBOX 360)
Angry Birds Star Wars

Crafts

Cut out different shapes and have the tweens and teens create their own R2D2
Print out colored versions of Star Wars cubees from sites like Cubecraft and have them create their favorites
Limber up your fingers, get out the paper and instructions and let them loose with Origami Yoda characters
Do a search for Star Wars coloring pages and set out colored pencils- my teens and tweens love nothing better than to color with pencils
If you trust your tweens and teens with needles, try some of the sewing crafts from Babble
Try out these perler / fuse beading patterns