Book & Cookie Club *Special* Event: (Not So) Happily After Hours

Graphic created on PicMonkey. Silhouette Image from Pixabay.

Two years ago, we had a parent request for an after hours program for our Book and Cookie Club program.  Since my library system has three locations, we thought this would be a fabulous opportunity for all three Book and Cookie Club groups to meet and share their love of all things literary and delicious!

It took some coordination and a lot of love AND contagious energy to make this after hours program a reality.  All of the credit goes to my awesome co-worker, E.  She is the heart and soul of this program and I am lucky and grateful that I get to play along!

Since this is becoming a much anticipated annual event, we wanted to have a consistent name for the program.  Last year, we stamped the program with the name "Happily After Hours."  Being a lover of puns and bad "dad jokes", I thought that Hapily After Hours would be a fantastic name for this event.  

This year, we realized that we could have our awesome event on Friday, the 13th!  After we secured the date, the spooky and mysterious possibilities were endless!

The Cake Caper

We wanted to have an icebreaker activity for our participants, so I started brainstorming a fun and interactive mystery activity - The Cake Caper!

The activity was introduced using a video I created on Adobe Spark.

​Hello.  My name is Detective Harper Watson of the DMD.  I am contacting you to inform you that a terrible tragedy has occurred.  At 20 hundred hours, the tasty cake that Emily, Deanna, Ale, and Nicole brought in for dessert was stolen!  I am calling on you to assist the Department of Missing Desserts in this case by collecting clues and completing assignments.  Your mission should you choose to accept it is to find the cake before it is too late!  
This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.

Participants were divided into groups, assigned a color, and given their case files.  I hid color coded clues and clue cards around the room for each team prior to the start of the event.  Each group was responsible for locating their clue cards and solving the challenges.  The group that completed all of their challenges was the first group to get cake (individually wrapped Zebra cakes).

To see the instructions and "team missions" for The Cake Caper - click here

After the Cake Caper, we had various stations that participants cycled through.  Some of the super fun activities that we had were - BookFace, mini golf, Fear Factor, coloring, and games.  Everyone had an absolute blast. 

​I cannot wait until next year's Happily After Hours!