Halloween Megathread

I forgot to tell you all about my Halloween Craft event! it was aimed at families, mostly with kids elementary school and older but we had a couple of 3 year olds as well. we had 9 families (parent/child pairs) out of 10 spots. cost was 100 yen per person.


schedule
9:00-10:00 set up
10:00-10:30 UKETUKE
10:30-10:32 intros/aisatsu
10:32-10:42 read ゆめちゃんのハロウィーン
10:42-10:52 about halloween in the US PPT
10:52-11:00 explain the craft
11:00-12:00 craft making
12:00-12:45 tear down, clean up, look at ANKEETO

for the prep, we set up tables and put the craft supplies in a box (think half of an omiyage box) for each table. this made distribution easy and clean up absolutely effortless because everyone put the scraps in the boxes. SASGA JAPAN

we got permission from the publisher to scan ゆめちゃんのハロウィーン and put it in the PPT so it would be easier for everyone to see socially distanced. this. was. so key. please asking the publishers if you can get/use the data because having it blown up (since there was no OOGATA EHON version) was so nice

then i did a quick talk about what halloween is, what costumes are popular, how trick or treat works (beggers night where i'm from), and what candy is common to get when trick or treating (could have mentioned chips and toys in hindsight but alas)

then, also using PPT, i explained the craft (also using examples in hand). as a HANSEI TEN, i should have either told them to watch me or invited them to do it step by step with me. i was unclear so it was a touch awkward but worked out

note that the "sit still" part (book+ppt+craft explain) was only 30 min. since it was for kids and esp with little little kids, it is super important to keep it short. that said, having it in the morning was probably good for the kids attention spans because even when some started to get bored they were all super quiet (and since i kept things moving they werent too bored for too long)

for the craft, we made these cut out decorations. (i couldnt upload my photos orz) we made our own templates to fit the craft paper we got from the Daiso.

we provided the paper strips, pencils, colored pencils, scissors, washi tape (to connect strips together if they wanted to make one long garland), string, and a hole punch. (we wanted to provide stickers, especially eyes, but the stores didnt have what we wanted)

we cut the strips of paper but they folded, traced, cut out, then decorated each. we had 4 designs. 3 of which each person got to do, the 4th was harder so only 1 per family (they all came in pairs this time). because we also included the string and tape to make finishing touches (so they could actually hang it up when they got home) they all took nearly exactly an hour. 


i honestly could not believe how smoothly and timely this event went. if you want more specifics, don't hesitate to ask me!

That sounds like a great event!! I didn't realize you could ask the publishers for data to do that!