Willy Wonka

Guess who turned 50 this year? 


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl! 

This classic cannot go without celebrating. 

To celebrate, my library hosted a program to give tribute to this guy. 

We hid golden tickets in the library for patrons to find. We had the tickets out all month long. 

When it came time for the program, we golden ticket holders could redeem their ticket for the book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" 
Penguin graciously donated an event kit. (It never hurts to ask!)  By having this donated it helped to bring down the cost of the program to just the cost of the chocolate bars. (We felt like it was needed)

For the actual program we had station set up (I am the station queen) 

1. Life size Candy Land 
I unfortunately did not get pictures. Children on a sugar highs kept me pretty busy, but this is an extremely easy activity. For our program, we just laminated different colors of construction paper. Next, we just placed them in a pattern on the floor. Next, we cut up some construction paper for cards. All the participants had to do was to draw a card, and move to their space.  It turned out something like this: 

The kids loved it! 

2. Invent your own candy station 

With allergies, we are finding it harder and harder to do food related activities. It seems like the only allergy friendly food anymore is  the Dum-Dum. So instead of having kids make real inventions, they played with gluten free foam. It was a pretend game, but it gave the kids an excuse to play with play dough like foam. What could be better! 

3. Trivia

I hung trivia up along the wall for the parents to try out. We also had a table for trivia for the kids. These questions were aimed at being a little easier for them. Both parties had fun.  


Finally. we played the movie. "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" 
The families enjoyed this the most. I am shocked how successfully movies go over. Most of the participants played Candy Land and then went to watch the movie. It was not what I was expecting! 

Overall the 50th Anniversary was a success. 

Maybe I just need to do more book and movie programs! Does anyone else have success with movie programs? 

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