Despicable Me 2 Party at the Library!

Last Thursday, I threw a Despicable Me 2 party for little minions aged 6 - 10. We had a wild time planning world domination and the kids even got to make their own minion to take home.


Here's what I did:
I started out by decorating the room.  I hung "minion" balloons from the ceiling.  These were super easy to make...just a plain yellow balloon with a minion face draw on in Sharpie! I made sure each one had a slightly different face and the kids just loved checking them all out! 

Then to start our party off right, we had some rocket launching practice. I bought two cheap foam rocket sets (1 launcher and 4 mini-rockets per set) and hung up three cardboard bulls-eyes for them to try hitting.  I purposely drew the three centers different sizes so that kids will have a higher success rate. One bulls-eye is hug (see below) and then one is slightly small and then the last one is very small. 

Once each child had had their turn to shoot the rockets, they lined up to take their turn at "Pin the Tail on FLUFFY!"  I created a very basic outline of Agnes' stuffed unicorn, Fluffy, on a piece of poster board, colored it with markers, and then I found a donkey tail outline online that I photocopied onto fuchsia construction paper.  I had each child write their name on the tail with marker, then I tied on their blindfold, spun them around three times, and let them pin their tails!  

For the second half of the program, each child made their own minion to take home!  Using a photo that I found online for inspiration, I created a minion craft out of a cereal box.  The downside to this particular craft was that cereal boxes come in different sizes, so I had to measure and cut the construction paper to fit each box.  I cut two large yellow pieces to fit the front and back of the box, two small yellow strips to fit the sides and one small yellow strip to fit the top of the box.  (I actually cut one end of the box open to help it stand and to be one less surface to cover.)  

Then, I cut small blue strips to fit the front back and sides of the bottom of the box to make the minion's overalls. I cut a blue square and some mini strips to become the bib and straps on the overalls.  I cut little black half moons for feet, and then cut large round circles from silver contact paper for the goggles.  I cut smaller white circles for the eyeballs and black strips for the goggle straps.  I made the decision to not worry about the overall straps or goggle straps going around the back of the minion to make prep easier. 

When I gave each child their cereal box, it contained the yellow and blue strips cut to fit that specific box.  They glued those pieces on first with white Elmer's glue, then I handed out the smaller pieces. I let each child choose whether they wanted one or two eyes for their minion and I also put out markers so that they could draw their minions eye expressions, mouths and any other decorations they wanted.  

This craft took a little longer than I expected, but they all loved it. I plan to do it again this fall, though I may try to make a mini version with poptart boxes or some other type of smaller box.  

At the very end, I also sent each child home with a "Despicable Me" coloring sheet and a little candy minion. These were fairly easy to make, though it's been so hot and humid here in New England lately that my minions were a little more melty than I had anticipated, making the icing way harder to work with!  For these I got yellow (vanilla-flavored) candy melts at Michael's, as well as candy eyeballs and black icing. I melted the candy, then dipped the spoons into the candy. I only coated the backs of the spoons rather than dipping the entire bowl of the spoon in to cut down on the amount of pure sugar that they kids got to eat.  Then I stuck one or two candy eyeballs into the candy.  I put them in the fridge for a while to solidify, then took them back out to use the icing to make the goggles around the eyeballs.  They came out really cute and both the kids and their parents loved them! 

If any of my librarian friends have any questions, please let me know and I'll answer whatever I can/share templates/etc!