The kids wanted a Halloween party, and I elicited a few ideas from them, but they still aren’t very good at planning things. The two things they asked for were a gummy worm and whipped cream game and the donut on a string game. One girl offered to make donuts.
I ordered cupcakes and had one of my volunteers make cupcake toppers. When I went to pick up the cupcakes they weren’t done because Stop snd Shop sucks so I grabbed a dozen of the packaged ones that totally didn’t match my cupcake toppers. I fretted about this until I remembered that middle schoolers dgaf. Of course as soon as I opened my email I saw that a bunch of kids had signed up late the night before so now I didn’t have enough cupcakes.
The girl who offered to make donuts backed out, so I had to buy those, too.
We had to kick the senior citizen cards group out of the meeting room a half hour early so I could decorate and they were pissed. Watch out for angry old people. They will probably vote against our new library and I will be stuck in the cramped, horrible children’s room forever.
I used black and orange tablecloths and some decorations from home and I left some of the lights off. I had the mismatched, inadequate cupcakes, some pumpkin cookies, a mess of candy and orange Kool Ade. It all looked very inviting.
One one table I had the stuff for the gummy worm game and on the other I had origami and a watercolor project. Something told me not to tie up the donuts unless they asked for it.
A bunch of kids arrived in a pack and several of them hadn’t registered, so I told them they couldn’t have cupcakes. At first they just milled around being awkward but they finally relaxed. I put on some music through spotify and that helped.
Most of them brought costumes but wouldn’t put them on unless someone else did first. It took a while but they eventually did. I was in costume as a black cat which did not delight and amuse as I anticipated. Only one kid even mentioned it and he ribbed me about it.
Origami pumpkins and bats were mostly ignored but I learned that if you put out origami paper it is an invitation to make throwing stars, which will be thrown at the ceiling tiles in an attempt to stick there.
The kid in the ninja costume should have left his nunchucks at home or I should have confiscated them because That Kid got ahold of them and I had to police that repeatedly.
That Kid also ended up on the floor under the snack table, grabbing people’s feet.
I should not rely on Spotify playlists to be teen appropriate. We had to keep skipping songs. In my defense, the girl who was supposed to make a playlist also bailed.
The watercolor project was really popular. The idea was to draw a spiderweb on watercolor paper with white crayon, then paint over it with liquid water colors in black, blue and purple. Then, while the paint is still wet you sprinkle it with salt, which gives it a cool mottled look. Lessons learned-don’t put the whole canister of salt on the table, and emphasize sprinkling, vs pouring. Also, Colorations liquid watercolors washed right out of a white Princess Leia dress.
The gummy worm game is simple: you put gummy worms in a pie plate and cover them with whipped cream. Then you try to get them out with your hands behind your back. Unfortunately this takes 5 seconds and you can really only do it once. It had a cost/fun ratio that was way too high. Gummy worms are expensive and it took 4 cans of whipped cream. I was planning on washing and reusing the pie plates but opted to toss them in the end. I would not play this game again.
Nobody asked about the donut game, but when we ran out of cupcakes I put the donuts out and everyone was happy.
The scary stories I had to read turned out to be not so scary. That Kid wanted me to read one off his phone but it was probably Superwholocke furry porn so I said no. But overall the kids seemed to like sitting in the dark being read to.
Some kids kids will naturally jump in to help clean up and others kids will just run around the room yelling. One of my favorite kids washed all of the food vessels on his own initiative.
All in all it was a good time. Now I have 3 more Halloween activities to get through, including trick or treating through the library with 22 toddlers. At least they don’t have throwing stars.
