Captain Underpants

One of the meetings I regularly attend is the Children's LMX Meeting. Children's Librarians who work at libraries in Middlesex County meet once a month to exchange ideas, act as a sounding board, and pass along information. At one of my first meetings in 2008, every librarian brought two program ideas to exchange- one for preschool children and one for school-aged children.  This is where I 'borrowed' the Captain Underpants program I had at my library in the Summer of 2009.  Thank you Edison Public Library!

There are several parts of the program:

1) When the children arrive, the first thing they should do is make a nametag for themselves which is based on the initials of their first, middle, and last names. For example, my initials are CPM- there was a silly word associated with each letter which would then create a new Captain Underpants superhero name. My new name was "Buttercup Banana Chunks."

2) Once everyone has a new name, distribute a short test based on Captain Underpants Trivia.  This acts as an icebreaker just to see howgreat everyone's knowledge of Captain Underpants actually is.

3) Terd Tossing Contest- prior to the program, I had two teen volunteers unwrap midgee sized tootsie rolls which would be used as terds (they washed their hands first.)  I divided the children into two teams- each child was given 5 terds to toss into their team designated toilet, one at a time of course. The team who was able to get the most terds in their toilet won.  I bought two toilet seats for about $10 each @ Big Lots and perched them on top of garbage cans.

4) Craft- each child decorate a pair of underwear. Some had Spiderman and some had little flowers:-)

Overall, the program was a great success. I geared it toward children ages seven and up (so that they could do the trivia test on their own) and it ran about 45 minutes to an hour. I've had several requests to do another one, so I may be revisiting the outfit below at a later date.

The kids loved my outfit- they couldn't quite figure out why I was dressed the way I was. My thinking behind my fashion choices was that I was dressing how I would if I were actually a character in the Captain Underpants' series.

Yes, I am wearing underpants on my head. I have on black spandex pants (from track my sophomore year of high school), boxer shorts on top of the spandex pants, a Rutgers T-shirt, my fluffy pink flip-flop slippers, and pink diva sunglasses. I'm also wearing a name tag that says "Buttercup Banana Chunks"- my new Captain Underpants superhero name.

In case you were wondering, I am standing between the two toilet seats that we used them for the "terd tossing" game.

If you want templates for any of the aspects mentioned in this program, shoot me an email: chrissie.mcgovern@gmail.com.