Hi, all,

I have been having trouble sending this out to the listserv, maybe because there were attachments so I am leaving them off this time.  You can visit our blog to see some pictures.

http://hpplteenblog.blogspot.com/


We were quite pleased with our party and grateful for all the good ideas!  Thank you all.
Many expressed an interest in what we were doing so after sifting through the great ideas here is a recap of what we did.

Kids registered by signing up for The Lottery.  It was a display up the week of TRW.
30 kids registered  - 40 showed.

Party began with lights off, creepy music, spotlight on me and the announcing of the rules. We were off to a good start if I must say so.  It got them quiet enough to listen to instructions - for the last time might I add.  It was quite loud from there on in!

Kids worked in district teams to decorate a banner and select a tribute to represent them. They dressed their tribute in a costume that they made as a group a la Project Runway. Correctly answered trivia questions earned them a trip to the Cornucopia for "supplies" for battle or their costume. They all really did a good job and were quite creative. They all had basic supplies to work with. Face painting was obviously part of it as you can see from the young girl pictured. Her mom might not have been as happy as she was.
 
Each district picked a "specialty".  We ended up with 4  - coal mining, military, agriculture and "awesome".
Then each district was interviewed and judged. Winners got to go first in archery.

The homemade bows and arrows were the biggest hit and we had a ball making them (ahead of time). Very quick and easy with wire cutters, pliers, coat hangers, rubber bands, q-tips and coffee straws - nothing bought.  
http://www.ehow.com/how_2187749_miniature-bow-arrows.html

They could have done archery all day! Fortunately, we all came back to civilization with cake and the choker activity.

Wish I had thought to put Rue in the centerpiece of the cake which was decorated with flowers. That was a last minute purchase, it was going to be brownies but I took what Costco had. Delicious and relatively inexpensive for a crowd.

Chokers were also a hit.  Magnets ordered from www.zazzle.com
on a piece of cut pantyhose and a washer "choker"
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pantyhose-Choker-Necklace
The Catching Fire magnets were more popular than Hungry? Better color. The kids made these at the end of the event. We had been wearing them all week to promote the event and even gave them out to middle school teachers to wear.  They were great at helping us promote the party.

Winners of various lotteries got copies of the books - HG or Catching Fire.
Very, very fun.  Budget  - $200 - Worked out to be $5 per kid.  Not bad.

We are thinking of doing a Lightning Thief party for the Summer Reading theme - Poseidon...that might be a good summer workshop idea??

Our biggest problem - we had too many kids for our meeting room!!  We have to figure out how to manage that better without turning kids  away :(

Big thanks to Lauren Uslan, our new part-time librarian, who was invaluable when it came to ideas.  Especially decorating - she had the idea of putting cameras around on tripods so it looked like they were being filmed. She also had the banner idea and found and made up the trivia questions. Not to mention that Lauren and Fran were top-notch Peacemakers all afternoon and all around good partners. 

Thanks to all who helped us with ideas! I'll send a separate list of all ideas sent in.

I'll bring some bows and arrows to the January GSTBA meeting.  A new dimension to fighting for your title?!

With all this text I'm still sure I missed something.  Email any questions.

Thanks again.

Michelle and Fran
Highland Park Public Library
www.hpplnj.org/teens
http://hpplteenblog.blogspot.com/