Happy Pig Day!

Thanks to Esther Burns, YSS member and youth services librarian at the Marion Public Library, for this terrific guest post.

Here at Marion Public Library, the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems are very popular.  So it’s logical that we celebrate with an Elephant and Piggie Party!  I found a lot of my ideas and resources through Pinterest- isn’t the internet awesome?

We started out with our first book—Happy Pig Day, of course!  After reading the first book, we headed over to our craft tables to make Piggie masks, so we could all pretend to be pigs like the animals in the book did.

posing with piggie masks

Next up was the book I Am Invited to a Party!  After the book, we played the costume game.  I had three volunteers, and took them each to a back room one at a time, and they picked a party that they were invited to.  Then I helped them get dressed up, and when they came out, the other kids had to guess what kind of party they were invited to.

Dressed for the library pool party

The kids got a HUGE kick out of this game!  There were lots of giggles, and if I had more time and costumes, they could have played the game all night.

Next up was the book Are You Ready to Play Outside?  After the book we headed back to the craft area to make rainy day pictures.  The kids colored umbrellas, cut them out and glued them onto blue paper.  Then they put big dots of white glue all over the pictures, and tilted them so the glue would run.  After drying, the glue looks like rain drops on the umbrellas.

umbrella work

 

The next book we read was I Am Going!  Since Piggie and Elephant have some lunch in this book, we had some lunch too.  I bought pig and elephant shaped cookie cutters from Amazon, and made ham slices shaped like pigs, and cheese slices shaped like elephants.

ham piggies...

I served these with crackers, and the kids gobbled them up!

gobbling up the snack

While they were eating, I finished up with reading I Will Surprise my Friend.  Every child then got to take home their own surprise.  I also had a selection of Mo Willems, Pig and Elephant books available for checkout after the party.

Our Pig Day party was a huge hit!  I had a great turn out, even on a chilly (and snowy) Monday Evening. Everyone had fun, and the best part was that the parents stayed and participated with their children, and seemed to have just as much fun as the kids did!  It wasn’t a ton of work for a party that lasted around an hour long, and I think I had as much fun planning it as my kids did participating in it!