Percy Jackson Party

Feb 21, 2024

$51-100

Byline

Grace Vinkour, Library Assistant - Children's Department, Cranford (N.J.) Public Library

In honor of the release of the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" television show, our Percy Jackson Party was a celebration of Rick Riordan's best-selling book series. Heroes united at Camp Half Blood by snacking on Greek food and blue snacks, participating in a Greek God costume contest, doing a Greek mythology scavenger hunt and making fun book-related crafts.

Advanced Planning

The long-awaited "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" TV adaptation was recently released, so the Cranford Library celebrated the book-to-television success with a Percy Jackson Party. Our goal for the program was to create an event where kids with a common interest in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson book series could come together to share some Greek food and blue snacks (Percy's favorite), do crafts, games, a Greek God dress-up contest and a Greek Mythology scavenger hunt.

The YA/Programming Librarian, Stacey Shapiro, and I started planning for the event about a month in advance. We started by requesting funds for the event from the Friends of the Library. Once the funds were approved, we added the event to the Cranford Library event calendar on the website. Next, we booked a large room at the Community Center attached to the library.

We ordered the necessary supplies from Oriental Trading (Greek name tags and vines for the Greek Gods costume contest). We purchased white tablecloths (for the Greek God costume contest), hummus, vegetables, blue Sour Patch Kids, blue Takis and blue Hawaiian Punch at the local grocery store. The hummus and vegetables were purchased on the day of the event.

Next, we began planning and preparing the necessary materials for the event stations. We created a sample of each of the crafts that we planned to have the participants complete: an Olympian's shield, Greek Hero pin, Medusa mask, aluminum foil covered lightning bolt, torch, laurel wreath crown and winged shoes. Then, we started prepping the necessary materials for each craft station. We cut lightning bolt shapes out of cardboard, cut out leaves from green construction paper for the laurel crowns, printed wings on thick paper for the flying shoes craft, printed Medusa mask coloring templates, and printed out the English to Greek letter guides and Greek hero quiz and printed the scavenger hunt pictures and checklists.

Marketing

We promoted the event on the library's website event calendar and the library's social media pages (Instagram and Facebook). We also posted the event on the local Facebook page, Cranford NJ Area-Families. The event was very well attended with a good mix of ages, both elementary and middle school-aged children.

Budgeting

The Friends of the Library gave us $60 to spend on the program. We used that money to buy food, Greek name tags, tablecloths and vines.

Day-of-event Activity

On the day of the event, set up began an hour and a half before the event was scheduled to take place. Two staff members arranged the tables and chairs for each station and placed all of the supplies on the tables for each of the craft stations. Food was set out for the refreshment table, the Mythical Creatures for the scavenger hunt were hidden, and the Olympic rings were hung from the ceiling for the game where you throw lightning bolts through them.

Program Execution

The program was held from 6-7 pm on a Thursday. When the participants first entered the room, they created a Greek name tag by writing their names in Greek. Next, they took a quiz to determine the Greek Hero with whom they had the most in common. Once they tallied up their results from the quiz, they made a button with an image of the Greek hero they got in the quiz. Then, they were encouraged to rotate through the various craft/game stations at their own pace. They could make an Olympian's shield, a Medusa mask, an Olympic torch, design wings for their shoes and make a laurel wreath crown. In addition, they could make a lightning bolt that they could practice throwing through the Olympic rings (pool noodles taped together into rings) we had hung from the ceiling.

Twenty minutes before the end of the program, we encouraged the participants to divide into groups for the Greek God costume contest. Each group would dress up one of their group members as a Greek God using the white table clothes as togas and the vines as decoration. They were also encouraged to use all of the crafts they had made during the event to enhance their costumes. With five minutes remaining of the program, we chose a winner of the costume contest and gave out prizes to all participants.

The program was very well attended and everyone seemed to have a great time. One of the participant's parents contacted us to let us know that their child had rated the program an 11/10 while driving home after the event!

Advice

The costume contest was the most fun part of the program, so definitely try to incorporate that element into your Percy Jackson program. All of the craft stations were designed for the kids to make a different component of the Greek God costumes, so it was very satisfying for the participants to be able to use the things they had created for the costume contest at the end of the program.