Noon Year’s Eve Party

Noon Years is such a great way to get families in the library during a time when it’s usually slow. I’ve done about three different events now, and they’ve all been packed with about 150-200 some patrons. On a cold morning after the holidays, those are great numbers.

Here’s how I usually run by events:

Balloon Drop

It’s kind of a must, since that’s what’s going to guarantee a crowd. I’ve always been at a library with two stories, so it’s made it perfect for a drop. I’ve usually just bought netting kits from Amazon, just make sure you READ the instructions on how they open! This was my second year:

Didn’t work out the best 🙂 You can watch the full video here. This year ran much smoother. The biggest problem with these kits is that they are just plastic netting and designed to only be used once. So not environmentally the best. Reusable netting seems to have mixed results from the reviews I’ve found.

My first year I used string netting and made a big hammock for my balloons at a previous library. That’s more environmentally friendly since that will eventually decompose, but it makes the drop a bit more awkward, since I had to strategically cut the netting to make the balloons slowly fall out, instead of just one string to pull.

So up to you which you think is better. I would also say that make sure that you have an electric balloon pump to blow up balloons–they are super cheap and a huge timesaver. Also, make sure that you have extra balloons to give to kids. Our drop had about 80 balloons and maybe 100 kids and most of them are going to want to take a balloon home. I would also recommend having a staff member, throw some balloons down during the drop in areas not immediately below the drop. That way, there’s not a scrabble to get to the front once the drop happens.

Make sure you also have a sign that says that balloons will drop and maybe pop. The noise might be too much for some kiddos, so it’s good to prepare families that might want to not be right out in front.

If you don’t have a second story, you might have to get a bit more creative. You could do a “Book Drop” instead of a balloon drop. Get a big rectangular pinata, make it look like a book, put it up somewhere safe, and then drop it at noon. Or you could break out a storytime parachute and try to launch balloons on that. Think either of those options would work.

Activities

My program runs from 11-Noon, on the day closet to New Year’s Eve. This year it was Monday, December 30th, and we still had a huge crowd. So for activities start with a scavenger hunt, since a good library scavenger hunt will take kids that full hour to find everything anyway. My kiddos and families get really into it, so I’ve made them harder every year. I’m going to write a post about my scavenger hunt tricks later. But anyway, real simple way to keep kids occupied. Since it’s cold this time of year, and I wear my tuxedo jacket, my scavenger hunt is penguin themed.

From there, I keep it pretty simple. We do penguin bowling in the stacks, which is always a huge hit. I found this set online but you could probably make something yourself if you wanted to, and I just set up a lane with our Keva baseboards and some pool noodles.

In our big Community Room I set up a snack table, since it’s lunch time for some kiddos. We had Goldfish crackers, or Penguin Food. In the center I set up a big igloo or snowfort AirFort and a lot of my obstacle course stuff circling it, like my stepping stones and balance beam. Lots of fun, I just made sure to have a staff member monitoring the AirFort and the obstacle course to make sure everyone was safe.

For crafts, we’ve done things like noisemakers made of popcorn seeds and paper plates, and party blowers with faces you could draw and attach to them. I added the mouths I drew to the bottom of this post.

I think that’s it. It’s a pretty easy event that kids big results during a slow time, so highly recommend. Hope this helps!

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