My library’s community has a small, but richly diverse population of people from all over the world, and this is something I like to reflect in my children’s department through collection development and programming. We have a large Muslim community here and we wanted to take part in their Ramadan celebrations. Earlier this month, we held a Ramadan Iftar Party for families, which included a storytime, crafts, and dinner after sundown. In this post, I will provide a recap of all the components of this successful program!
Storytime
We started the program with a reading of Moon’s Ramadan by Natasha Khan Kazi. This book beautifully showcases how families around the world celebrate Ramadan. This was the perfect story for this program, as the families attending the program come from different parts of the world and it was fun to see the children get excited when their countries were mentioned.
Crafts
After the storytime, three craft stations were available and managed by teen volunteers. Because we were catering to 40-50 families, we kept the stations simple with most of the materials prepared in advance. We had the following stations:
- DIY Eid Cards: We folded the cardstock in advance and provided the children with crayons, pencils, and stickers to decorate their cards.
- Paper Plate Moons: For this craft, we cut paper plates into crescent shapes prior to the event. We provided the children with dot markers and star stickers to decorate their moons.
- Paper Lanterns: This craft was more challenging, in that the children had to cut it out themselves, but they had a blast with it! They were able to cut, color, and glue their lanterns themselves.
Dinner After Sundown
The moment everyone was waiting for! We had a local Halal restaurant cater the event. They made it really simple by having all the food prepped in individual boxes, so all we had to do was give each attendee a box and utensils. Each box came with chicken or vegetables, rice, and potatoes, and everyone loved it!
This Ramadan Iftar Party was a successful event and we would love to do it again! Does your library do any programs for Ramadan?
This post addresses ALSC Core Competencies I. Commitment to Client Group and III. Programming Skills.