End of Summer Reading Carnival

We don't always have a big ending for our Summer Reading Club program, but I always think it's nice to do a little something that day. This year, I threw a carnival with games, prizes, and even cotton candy! This was a 1 hour program (although some families stayed a little longer) and it was advertised for all ages (but most attendees were 2-8 years old). I didn't end up having a lot of teen volunteers to help with this program, so instead of having kids collect tickets and redeem them for prizes I just had a prize for each game won and relied on parents/the honor system.

Hand Golf! (because I couldn't find our set of kids' golf clubs) Kids had to roll until they hit 100 points to earn a sticky hand toy.

  

Potato Sack Race! Everyone who made it to the end of the course earned cotton candy (made by a teen volunteer).

Pete the Cat toss game (left over from Pete's birthday party in April). Kids threw velcro covered balls at Pete. When they got all four balls stuck, they earned a bag of popcorn.

   

Tin Can Knock-Down- kids threw balls to knock down cans. Little kids had a big ball and older kids (or kids who wanted a challenge) could throw a smaller ball. They had as many tries as they wanted and when they knocked down all the cans they earned a container of bubbles

  

Bean Bag Toss- I set out small containers labeled with more points and bigger containers labeled with fewer points. Kids who tossed until they earned 100 points won a sheet of stickers.

  

Plinko- this was left over from a program a coworker of mine did this spring. It was made using a lid from a box of printer paper and straws. Kids dropped their bottle caps until they landed in a prize spot and won a balloon sword or guitar (pre-made by the same coworker who made the plinko). Pre-making the balloons saved a TON of time.

At the end, kids could take a picture with a clown cut-out to remember the day! Kids and adults both loved this one and it was totally worth making a quick cutout (cardboard was from a coworker's new big screen TV).

This program went so well! Around 40-45 kids ended up coming by (which is really solid for a program at our library). The only thing I would have changed is planning ahead a little more with making cotton candy. I pre-packaged all of the popcorn but I wish I had asked our teen volunteer to start making cotton candy earlier so all of it could have been pre-packaged, too. We have a very small cotton candy maker, so it took a little while for each batch and some kids had to wait a bit. Luckily there were plenty of games to keep them occupied!