Star Wars Fans Unite!

We've hosted Star Wars origami programs in the past, but this year, we decided to mix it up a little with new activities and special guests.  We held our program on a Saturday afternoon as a one hour open-house style event, with no registration and no age limits.  Here's what we did:

• Created Chewbacca bookmarks out of construction paper using the printable templates found here.

 

• Made lightsabers using glow bracelets and black and gray tape (similar to these, substituting tape for the nail polish).

  

• Crafted Yoda ears out of paper; I used sentence strips from a classroom supply store for the band that goes around the head, and participants free-handed their ears on matching cardstock. 

 

• Browsed a book display of Star Wars-themed materials.
• Took home Star Wars printables.
• Mingled with Darth Vader and his buddies!  We connected with a local chapter of Vaders 1st 501st Legion through this website, and they were so much fun to work with!

My little storm trooper, Sophie, and my husband, Karl, got in on the action!

 

 Words of wisdom:

Skip the printable take-homes.  I brought these kind of as a back-up, in case we needed more time (thinking that we might do them during the program), but we were busy bees all hour long!

The lightsabers, yoda ears, and Chewbacca bookmarks are all inexpensive, 'tween-appropriate crafts, and littler kids can do them with the help of a grown-up.  We had several volunteers for this event, and we stationed one at each craft area.  This helped a lot! 

 

 

Star Wars Origami

Over the weekend (on May 4th, of course!), we offered Star Wars Origami for all ages.  This wasn't the first time we've offered this program, but it was the first time I've really felt like it went smoothly.  We had 64 people come through during the one-hour program (mostly school-age boys... a lot of grown-ups stayed, too, thankfully!); here's how we organized it:

• We advertised the program for all ages, and we included "drop in anytime" in the event listing so that patrons would know they didn't need to arrive at the very beginning or stay the entire time. 
• I set up a table with the following supplies, in this order, along with copies of Tom Angleberger's Origami Yoda books:
• Photocopies of the instructions for the Universal Puppet, C3-PO, R2-D2, and Yoda (all based on the Universal Puppet, all from Tom Angleberger's books)
• Photocopies of the instructions for the 5-fold Yoda and the Lightsaber, also from Tom Angleberger's books
• 8 1/2 x 11 paper in green (for Yoda), yellow (for C3-PO), and white.  The patterns we used all call for rectangular paper, which is really handy. 
• Crayons, colored pencils, and magic markers for adding details
• I set up an additional table with the following supplies:
• Star Wars stickers
• A very special R2-D2 stamp and an ink pad
• Drawing paper and colored pencils, crayons, and magic markers
• Copies of Star Wars Thumb Doodles, Star Wars Origami, Star Wars Folded Flyers, You Can Draw Star Wars, The Star Wars Craft Book, and Star Wars Mad Libs

Patrons came in and as I greeted them, I pointed out the items on tables and suggested that they start with the Universal Puppet.  The vast majority of participants stuck with the Universal Puppet and the creations that can be built off of that model, as well as the 5-fold Yoda and the Lightsaber.  A few ambitious souls tried some of the projects in the books on the second table.  Younger kids loved having the Thumb Doodles, and the Mad Libs were great for kids who needed something other than origami to keep them busy.  The stickers and R2-D2 stamp provided extra flair for anything and everything! 

The best part: all of our materials are safely packed away in one tub, ready to be pulled out for a future Star Wars Origami event!