Pete the Cat Storytime and Party

Who doesn’t love Pete the Cat??  Over 80 kids showed up to our Pete the Cat storytime, so I wanted to share what we did.

Setup

I modeled this program off of our popular Dr. Seuss Birthday Party, where half the time is stories, and the other half is crafts and activities.  And I knew I wanted one of those activities to be a chance to Meet Pete!!  For our costume, we went with Costume Specialists to book our Pete the Cat costume.  It was only $140 to rent, and came two weeks ahead of schedule, so we were able to use it for Facebook promotion, which created A LOT of buzz.

Stories

We did two classic Pete the Cat stories, first one being “I Love My White Shoes.”  Miss Gloria had to play Pete, and she acted it out as best she could, marching in place for the walking parts, and putting her hands over her eyes and shaking her head when she the shoes got dirty in the book.  I just went through the book and sang the song with the kids, I got some great ukulele tabs here if you play:

We did “Four Groovy Buttons” basically following the same concept, with Miss Gloria acting out the story and dancing around, and me saying the story and singing with the kids.  In between the two stories, we sang “If You’re Groovy and You Know It” (it’s like “If You’re Happy and You Know It” but cooler) to get kids to refocus.

After that we clapped for Pete and I told everyone that he had to go take a cat nap for a bit.  Miss Gloria then switched out of the costume and had someone else take over, which was a really good idea as it gets hot in there.  While the switch was happening, I went around and explained all the different activities around the room.

Activities

Meet Pete

We’ve done some big author events in the past, so I decided to treat it like this.  Every parent or group that entered got a “line letter” which held their place in line.  To avoid a mad rush to get to Pete, we simply lined up by letter.  So all the “A’s” would meet Pete and get their photo taken.  When the “A’s” were almost done, I called over all the “B’s” to meet Pete, and so on until everyone got to see him.  This worked out WONDERFULLY so I highly recommend you do it like this.

Bean Bag Toss

This is something that our circ assistant Jess made for us really quick.  Keep in mind it will be mostly little kids, so we had the throw line pretty close to Pete.

Walk with Pete

This was an idea I originally got from CCPRN, but then modeled after Miss Gloria’s monster footprints we use for our Trick or Treat in the Library.  Miss Gloria cut out a bunch of different footprints that kids could track around the library, like they were walking with Pete.  When Pete would step in something, the footprints would change the appropriate color, and then the kids would have to do some sort of action to keep going on the path.

Shoe Coloring Sheet

Something I whipped up pretty quick.  You can download a copy here for free.

Pete Headband

Another really simple idea, this one we got from Kids Soup.  Just got out a bunch of strips of dark blue paper and have the kids staple or glue them together.

Cut out some eyes and ears and you’re good to go.  I made it a little simpler by making an eye template, and printing that on some yellow paper.  You can download that too here if you need it.

Button Bracelet

Are your buttons always popping off and rolling away?  NOT ANYMORE!!  For this, we just got some cheap, chunky buttons and some pipe cleaners to make bracelets.  Thanks to Coffee Cups and Crayons for this one.

Painting with Shoes

We found this one on Pinterest, but it wasn’t attached to any particular blog.  I got a bunch of extra shoes from our basement, but you could probably get some from Goodwill.  I set up a bunch of paper plates with washable paint in a kiddie pool–this was our station to put paint on the shoe.  Right next to it was a big blue tarp with some canvas on it.  Kids would just come up, pick a color and a shoe, and stamp on it.  This one worked really well, and there was hardly any paint on the floor.  Just make sure no one walks through it or uses their OWN shoes 🙂

That’s it–hope this helps you out.  If not, it’s all good.

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