Mark of Athena/Camp Half Blood Party

 Last Wednesday we held a super fun awesome fantastic party to celebrate the release of the latest Hero of Olympus book, the Mark of Athena by Rick Riordian. Not a lot of the kids who showed up had read any of the Percy Jackson books so we made sure to point out our lovely display of Greek mythology books.

To ease the kids into the Greek mythology theme we started with a matching game. Each kid got a slip of paper with the name and description of a Greek god or their Roman counterpart. The kids had to use the descriptions to mingle in and out of the crowd and find their match. We did several rounds, changing the rules each time. The first round was a free-for-all where the kids just had to find their match through any means necessary, in the the second round you couldn't say any of the words on your slip of paper and the final round was completely silent and ended up being a great game of charades.

We have an awesome new person working in the children's room. After two months of running the department by my completely overwhelmed self, back up arrived and this game, as well as the trivia round that followed, were done completely by Ms. E. I can't even begin to describe how nice it feels to breathe again.

Our next game was Pin the Snake on Medusa. Again we did several rounds which got progressively rowdier and more hysterical each time a kid tried to walk straight past the pillar where the poster was secured. We did have to make a rule about no feeling around for the correct place to stick the snake. Those kids were sneaky!

We made shields next. I did quick drawing instructions for symbols for the 12 major Greek gods (plus Hermes and Hestia because they've always been my favorites) and the kids used those to decorate sheilds. The instructions are here in case you're interested in drawing your own winged sandal (not my best effort) or peacock feather.

And after the Wimpy Kid party, I don't think I could get away with not having cookies to decorate.

Some kids used the drawing instructions for their cookies as well- here's D's Key of Hades.

And others just used as much icing as humanly possible...

The last activity before we showed the Percy Jackson movie (which resulted in more than one kid checking out The Lightning Thief and the movie) was our pinata. I made a minotaur pinata (instructions to come in a later post) that we hung from a long piece of leftover window blinds and suspended over the wall into the party room. We had an old toy sword in the Lost and Found and it made a perfect weapon for battling the minotaur. It only took about 3 whacks for the mighty beast to fall and the next time we use a pinata I'll have to figure out a better way of hanging it.                                            

Overall the party was a success. I swore, like I always do, to never again give that many kids that much sugar before asking them to sit still for a movie or any sort of activity. Maybe the next party will feature more apple slices and goldfish crackers and less processed icing.