Falling into Art

This fall for programming, I decided I wanted to reach out to a new group that wasn't being reached as much as I'd like -- the preschool to 2nd grade demographic. This is a fun age to work with, as these kids love trying new things. I thought long and hard about what sort of programming would work well for this group; I'd had luck with our stand alone programming, such as our Princess Tea and our Superhero Party, but I wanted something more regular.

Then it hit me: art! We're not talking about crafts here. We're talking art. The kind parents hate doing at home because it's so messy. Since we're a library, and we're used to messes, this seemed like the perfect outlet for these kids to express their creative urges. I wanted more than simply projects, though. I wanted this program to be about tactile experience, too. I wanted to give kids a ton of different options for creating and I wanted it to be done through means that would be unique and develop some of those fine motor skills that are so important at that age. Of course, these programs translate well for older kids, too, and at my library, sometimes big brothers or sisters have stopped in with their younger siblings, and they've found making art just as fun as the little ones.

I bought a few key supplies before fall and winter programming began to prepare for this program, and I made sure on all of our advertising that it mentioned these art projects can get messy and to dress for it. I've had no complaints about that, and by purchasing large, pump-lidded paints (pictured above and purchased through Discount School Supply), as well as large plastic lunch trays (also through Discount School Supply), I've ensured that what could turn into a very messy project is actually very manageable. Washable trays keep tables from becoming makeshift art pieces quite nicely.

In the program, I like offering more than one project, allowing kids to do any of them they like or all of them, too. If you're looking for a fall project, here's what we did earlier this month!

I focused all of my ideas on leaves this month, and the day of the program, I went for a walk up and down the street where my library was, picking up leaves in a wide variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. Though I felt a little like a crazy lady picking up leaves from people's yards, no one looked at me twice. Perhaps I've a reputation. Alas, as you can see above, I filled a small storage tub with them. Cost? $0.

Then I set up two of the three projects at one table:

I spread a pile of leaves down the center of the tables, with a project on either side. On the right, this:


Leaf rubbing! I pulled out a box of our crayons and made an example of what leaf rubbings looked like. This is a satisfying project for kids because they get to be a little messy with coloring and still enjoy seeing something that looks like a leaf. It's one they can make into something really artistic and it's one that they can simply enjoy doing without a plan in mind. We had a little of both.

On the left side of the table, this project:

Leaf collages. The kids were able to put leaves into any shape or design they wished to (and some simply piled them one on top of another) and then I put down a piece of contact paper to keep them in place. The nice thing about this project is that the leaves will stay nice for a long time, making it a piece of art they can hold on to for a long time. Supplies needed? Scissors, contact paper, and construction paper. All of those are things probably hanging out on a shelf in your supply area for free.

On the other side of the room, I set up our other project -- one that required the lunch trays, clothes that can get messy, and ample paper towels and hand wipes for the kids (and parents, too):

I pulled out a pile of paper plates, some paint brushes, a couple cups of water, and, as you can see on the far right, the remaining box of leaves. The third project was making these:

Leaf prints! For this project, the kids pulled out leaves, painted them however they wanted to (yes, right on the leaf) and then pressed them down on the paper. While the kids were doing this, I kept trying my hand at it, as my example didn't seem to do much to show the veins of the leaves. I eventually found -- thanks to the help of kids who were much smarter than me -- that painting the back side of the leave would highlight the veins a lot more. Lesson learned.

This simple-to-assemble program was a big hit, and even after some of the kids finished all of the projects, they went back and made second and thirds of some of them. The cost is little more than picking up the leaves, and we probably have plenty of those to spare this time of year.

These programs are great for the family, as often this age group wants a little help from mom and dad. But what I think is important to remember in doing a program like this is less about making the right kind of art piece and more about experiencing the process of making art. As you can see, my examples are extremely simple and even, if you will, lazy. I don't want the kids or parents to feel like they need to make things the way I do. Art is about expressing as you want to, and while kids are usually so eager to do that, it's often parents who insist on making things like examples (storytime crafters are probably familiar with this phenomenon). In these projects specifically, there are so many sensory elements to the art, and I think it's important to step back and let the art come to the kids. If they want to just paint a leaf and not press it, let it happen. If they want to just paint and not bother with the leaves? Let it happen.

Lego Club: A How-To Guide

I've been asked how I run Lego Club at my library, and while I don't think I do anything radically different from other libraries, I thought I'd share what I do and what I've sort of adapted over the course of this fun program.

Getting a Lego Club Started

The very first step in getting a Lego Club started is...getting Legos. Anyone who has ever purchased Legos knows they are not inexpensive. I was lucky because in my storage closet at work, I found a small starter box of Legos. But I knew that small box would in no way cut it.

I didn't want to spend too much building the collection, so I turned to the community. Through our monthly newsletter and in in-library advertising, I asked for donations. I got a couple enthusiastic responses from the start, and I collected another small lot of Legos. Again, it wasn't quite enough for the club I envisioned. I turned, too, to my friend Brian, who is a huge Lego enthusiast, and he hooked me up with another donation. But still, I knew I didn't have enough, so I had to figure out where to buy some Legos with a tight budget.

Enter MegaBlox.

MegaBlox are sold in 1,000 piece kits and they work with regular Legos. They happened to be on sale at my local box store, and I picked up 2 kits for $40. I also bought a couple packs of mini-figurines and with what I'd collected, I just hoped for the best.

Lucky for me, after the club met a couple times, we began ROLLING in donations. I mean it when I say I have 3 huge Rubbermaid tubs full of Legos. I have tons of cool pieces, and I have tons of the bases and figures. When word got out about the club and the kids started showing off their works, people began bringing us so many Legos, I almost had to start turning them away. It was fantastic.

The Club Set up

I run my club twice a month after school at 4 pm for one hour (I made adjustments in the summer). I began the club thinking each week I'd come up with a theme for the kids to build on, but in the end, I scrapped it. My kids were interested in building whatever they wanted, and who was I to stop that creativity?

In setting up the room, I put out 3 or 4 tables to build on, but I put them on the sides of the room and leave the center of the room completely open. I lay down two large table cloths (the heavy duty kind) and dump the Legos onto the table cloths. This lets the kids dig and explore all they want to -- which for some kids, is the entire point of Legos -- and then at the end, clean up is as easy as getting the pieces onto the table cloths, folding them up, and dumping the Legos into the container. Painless.

As the kids finish their creations, they come up to me and tell me what they made and what they're calling it. My first couple of meetings, I had the kids share with everyone what they made, but I found out they hated this, and some didn't want to talk in front of the group at all. So, I decided they could come talk to me and just me. When they tell me their creation's name, I write it down on a small piece of card stock, along with their first name, and then they are free to put the creation anywhere on top of the shelves in the children's area they wish.

When all of the kids have their creations up, they can wander and see what the other kids made.

After Lego Club

I leave the kids' Lego creations up until the next Lego Club. The day of the next club meeting, I take them apart and they get to start all over again.

Lessons Learned

Honestly, this is an easy to run program and one that, despite some initial costs, is cheap. Anyone can supervise it, and I've toyed with the idea of having it become a volunteer-run program.

I began the program by limiting it to those in 2nd grade and older, but I kept getting younger kids who wanted to participate. And you know, I let them. Whenever parents bring their kids, I say that the only age requirement is that the kids are able to play with regular Legos themselves. Most of the time, the littler kids come with parents who stay and play with them. I love this -- I believe Lego Club is one that is really a great family program, as so often, the parents come and play with the kids. Seeing dads with their sons is wonderful.

Which brings me to this: it's a big boys program, but not all boy. If you can, get ahold of brightly colored, pink, purple, and neon colored Legos, too. We have a pink kit, and in it were flowers, birds, and other little things that both the girls and boys have loved using. I would say bulk up, if you can, on mini figures for your Lego collection, since those are the most popular things in my sets.

When I began, I thought that having a lot of bases to building would be important. It's not. If you don't have many, you will be just fine. The kids are so imaginative and creative that they will make something from nothing. And the stories they will tell you about what they make are fascinating.

In room set up, I discovered some kids are going to gravitate to using tables and chairs, but most of mine prefer to lie on the floor in front of the Lego platter. They help one another find pieces they need, and they're cooperative in sharing. The social skills they learn here are important, and the bonding they have over the activity is one that's not easy to replicate in many other youth programs. One thing I do is provide buckets -- I have some from the Legos themselves -- and the kids who want to collect Legos to build on a table can use one of those to scour the pile then build elsewhere.

I average between 18 and 30 kids each time I run the program, which for a twice a month program that requires nothing of me other than setting out Legos and taking them down, is a great turn out.

You can make this program as challenging or not challenging as you wish, but I prefer to keep it really laid back. My kids have enjoyed it greatly, and everyone loves to look at the Lego creations the kids make. I think putting the things on display is key to a successful Lego Club: it gives the kids a sense of accomplishment AND it's perfect advertising for the next club. I do think I am going to invest in a bag of Duplos though to have out in our children's area for anytime use because the kids who look at the display have a tendency to want to play with the items. Alas. I don't yell at them about it. It's natural curiosity.

I did have one tricky incident in Lego Club that's worth noting. I mentioned that I got a lot of really good mini figs through donation; apparently, they were SO good, that one of my kids pocketed a handful during Lego Club and took them home. Fortunately for me, his mom brought it to my attention and made him bring them to me and apologize the next week. It was a hard lesson for him, and I think it's one to just be aware could happen. I don't operate with that on my mind, but it is a slight possibility. Speaking of the mini figs, I had a mom and her kids want to buy a few pieces off me, too, since they loved what I had received so much. I didn't sell them, but instead, I directed her to a couple websites that might be able to help her. In short: be familiar with where you can acquire Star Wars and other popular figures.

Bonus: this program works for teens, too! My teens are rabid about Legos. So there you go!

Chocolate Olympics & Death by Chocolate

While last week I talked about programs that didn't cost money, today I'm going to share two programs I did (that were essentially the same thing) that ran me about $90 together. For drawing 60 kids, I think the cost was definitely worth it, but I think this is the kind of program that could probably be modified in many ways to be cheaper.

This is also a staff intensive program, unless you run it in a more competitive way than I did. I chose to do stations, rather than group events, except for the final contest. I had myself, two volunteers, and an additional staff member to help out, but again, I think modifications can easily be made.

I have photos from my tween stations, but I'll talk, too, about the other events I did for the teens.

The Set Up

I brainstormed and researched different ways of running this program until I found the right combination of events for my tiny space. I did plan it with the intention of doing it outside under our big tent, but with the weather throwing us a heat wave (and, um, chocolate not being good under those conditions), I had chosen the right activities to modify it for primarily indoor space.

Supplies
- Dark chocolate bars (I bought 2 of the 10 packs, but you can do more or less)
- 15 different types of candy bars (you can use more or less)
- 2 bags of mini candy bars for prizes
- 12 boxes of chocolate pudding
- Sour gummy worms
- 2 family size bags of plain M&Ms
- 1 family size bag of whoppers
- 2 large containers of chocolate sprinkles
- 2 family size boxes of oreos
- 1 or 2 bags of Hershey kisses
- Plastic cups
- Plastic spoons
- Pie tins (these were the most expensive items I bought)
- Napkins
- Construction or other painting/drawing appropriate paper
- Masking or Duct tape

The Program

Let's go station by station. At the tween event, two of the stations were set up to be unmanned, though we ended up manning one of them out of sanitary sake. In no particular order:

First up: the "Chocolate Puzzle." This was our unmanned station that we used in both programs (reusing the same materials). I purchased 15 kinds of candy bars, ranging from well-known Snickers and Butterfinger, to Kit Kat, and to the hard-to-guess Mars bar. I cut them into pieces -- halves for the smaller bars and quarters for the full size bars -- then put them into bags with a number attached. I then made up a guessing sheet that had 15 blank spots for the kids to guess which which kind of candy bar was in each bag.

I didn't put a sheet out for the kids to see the answers. Instead, I made them hold on to their response sheets until the end of the program. I had them take a seat as I held up each numbered bag and they told me their guess. I had written on the sheets that anyone who got 10 of the 15 correct would win a prize, but seeing I had a ton of prize candy, I let anyone who got 5 or more right win.




The next station I'll talk about is the "Stack and Sort." This table had two events, since they were each shorter ones.

First, the "sort." I went through the bags of M&Ms and sorted them into 30-some bags of 75 M&Ms each, with a variety of colors. I didn't count out colors for equality, just the number of candies in each bag. For this event, kids paired up and competed against another pair to see which group could sort their M&Ms by color fastest. Not as easy as it sounds, since they're working together as teams and need to have a plan. When one team finished, they were winners and got to pick out a prize. Both teams then got to enjoy their bag of M&Ms before diving into the second activity at this table.

The "stack" also relied on team work -- the pairs each took turns adding one Oreo at a time to create a tower. They were racing against another team doing the same thing. Whoever made the tallest tower won a prize. The challenge to this was, of course, the team work and the fact that the team across the table also shook the table, making the tower bases a bit unstable. When the kids finished this task, they didn't get to eat the cookies. . . until everyone had gone. Then they were able to help themselves if they wished.


What we thought would be one of the less exciting stations actually became one of the favorites: the "Whopper Relay." As you can see, we laid a piece of tape across the floor, and we had two kids line up along the wall opposite that line. They were each given one Whopper, had to get on their hands and knees, and roll the Whopper with their nose from one side of the room to that line, then they had to turn around and roll it back. The first kid to make it both ways would win.

This was easily the funniest part of the program, as we learned some kids were pretty darn good at using their nose to roll a Whopper. Even the teens loved this station and found it as funny as we did.

One of our non-pictured events was called "Chocolate Pudding Pie Surprise," and it's one we used for the teens only (due to attendance). In this program, we made up 15 pies made of chocolate pudding and dropped 6 sour gummy worms inside each. Two kids sat across the table from one another, their hands behind their back, and they had to race to retrieve the gummy worms from inside the pie using only their mouths and teeth. They were given a cup beside their pie tin to drop them into, and when they believed they'd fished out all of the worms, they were able to call stop. The person who pulled all six out first won, and they got to get a prize. We also let the kids keep their pudding pies if they wished, and I have to say, I was pretty surprised everyone wanted to keep them...and the worms.

This station wasn't one everyone wanted to do for obvious mess reasons, which is one reason I think setting it up station style was a good way to go. And keeping it for a smaller group, too, helped keep the cost/mess down. We told all of the teens if they dropped their pie from the table, they'd be responsible for licking it up off the ground.

None of the pies ended up on the floor!




Because I still wanted Tweens to play with chocolate pudding, their station was Pudding Finger Painting. This station was one meant to be unmanned, but due to sanitary concerns, we did man it.

For this, we set up a big bowl of chocolate pudding, construction paper, plastic cups, spoons, and napkins out. We told the kids they needed to spoon their "paint" from the bowl and use their cup of pudding to paint. They almost all painted something about loving chocolate, then turned to enjoying the pudding from their cups. I had worries they would lick chocolate from their fingers or spoons and put it back into the big bowl, but no one did.

Another unpictured event we had for the teens was our dark chocolate Pictionary game. Using the same yellow construction paper and two packs of dark chocolate bars, the teens pulled a clue from an envelope (where my volunteer and I had created 40 different clues) and they were to draw the clue with the chocolate bar. This was, by far, one of the favorite events, as the kids loved how the dark chocolate drew just like a brown crayon (and they loved drawing things from Harry Potter to zombies to hotels and mail boxes).

When someone guessed the correct item being drawn, they won a prize and became the drawer. Eventually, though, this program became sort of self-directed, as the kids really just wanted to draw (then eat...) the dark chocolate. Fine with me!



For the tweens, we also did a "Chocolate Shuffleboard." As you can see, I lined up two tables, not precisely flush with the walls, and I had my volunteer put duct tape down as point lines. The kids got to pick their puck from the bucket (which had Baby Ruth, Crunch, and Butterfinger bars -- think different shapes and aerodynamics!). We made four point brackets, then two extra spaces indicated as X's on the tables, and the kids lined up in groups of 2-4 at the end of the table pictured. They had three shots to score points, and whoever in the group earned the highest number of points won.

Though this was one of those last minute adds to the program, the kids enjoyed it a lot and came back more than once to do it.

Finally, we did three "Chocolate Relays" outside under the tent, despite the oppressive heat. The first involved chocolate sprinkles and cups -- the kids lined up in equal teams (we did multiple rounds for the tweens and one round with bigger teams for the teens). The first person to go was given a cup of chocolate sprinkles and a spoon, and on the opposite side of the tent, there was an empty cup. The goal was for the teams to transport the sprinkles by spoon from their side to the empty cup on the other. When the first team emptied the cup they held, the race was over, and we judged which team had gotten the most sprinkles into the other cup. The point of the race, of course, is determining if going fast was better than going slow and steady or whether it was worth doing big scoops or small scoops of sprinkles.

After that relay, we did a second one. The kids stayed in their same teams, but this time, each was given a pair of oven mitts. The first person in each team put them on, then they raced down to the table on the other end of the tent, where a bowl of Hershey Kisses waited. With the mitts on, they had to unwrap the Kiss, eat it, throw out the wrapper, then run back to their team and swap mitts with the next person up. While it sounds easy, opening the Kiss is challenging with the mitts on, ESPECIALLY when the chocolate has begun melting from the heat. Because the adults were laughing so hard at the kids, we were challenged to try it ourselves -- and we did, like the good sports we are. It was challenging, but in a very funny way. The first team to have all their players complete the task won a prize.

The final relay we did only with the teens, and it was one we came up with on the spot. Each player on a team was given a spoon and instructed to put it in their mouth. The first player needed to come down to the table then scoop a Whopper out of a plastic cup with the spoon in their mouth (we held the cups for them). They then raced back to their team, where they had to pass the Whopper from their spoon to the spoon in the next player's mouth. Then that person ran down and deposited the Whopper into the cup again and so forth. It wasn't an easy one for them, either, as we told them if the Whopper fell on the ground, they had to pick it up with the spoon in their mouths. And yes, this happened more than once. As usual, the first team to finish the relay won.

Lessons Learned

I actually had a lot more chocolate left over than I anticipated, so I was very loose with my definition of "winning." I let anyone who wanted prize candy take it, especially in the end, so it would all disappear (and it did).

One of the things I was worried about was not having enough activities and the huge mess that would come at the end. Here's the thing: because it was so staff intensive and we couldn't lead kids around from station to station, it ended up working out perfectly. The kids picked where they wanted to go, and we let them do any activity they wanted to do multiple times. As far as the clean up was concerned, there really was no mess. The messiest activity was the sprinkle race, but because it was outside, we didn't really need to clean up much of anything. All of our indoor activities were done on tables covered in the $1 table cloths that made clean up as easy as wrapping up the mess on the table and tossing it. Simple!

Without doubt, this was fun for both me and the kids, and it's a program I would not only recommend but would do again. I have a ton of other activity ideas to keep it fresh if I did it in the future. It also gives me a lot of hope that my fall "Minute to Win it" program will be as popular as this one was.

Of Note

The thing that probably surprised me the most was that we had more boys than girls in both programs. And I loved how easily transferable the activities were between the age groups, too, and both the tweens and teens had equal amounts of fun doing the silly activities.

I think this is a program that could work for the whole family, too. Pricey, sure, but for an activity that brings this much joy to both the participants and staff (and not to mention the incredible photos we've got!), it's worth doing it.

Going Green: A Recycled Costume Show

The theme of the week is no cost programming, and today's program at work was one of the favorites so far this summer: a recycled costume show.

I mentioned before that there are always programs you inherit when you start a new job, and this is one of the traditional summer programs at my library. I think it's a really cool program and one I plan on keeping around. It's easy to organize and cost free, and it lets kids of all ages express their creativity.

Supplies

This is an easy one: anything recycled. But start saving things well in advance of your program, and have your staff help out. I had bubble wrap, packing paper, cardboard, tinsel, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, cereal boxes, soda bottles, and other regularly recyclable materials. My supplies also included most of last year's summer reading club decorations, which meant there were a ton of shark fins, some plastic shovels and goggles, and, perhaps the crowd favorite, the wicker luau fans like these.

I then pulled out glue, scissors, yarn, stick on foam shapes, craft fuzz balls, tape, duct tape, and a handful of other supplies I wanted to deplete.

Set Up

In the past, this program has been held under our big outdoor tent, with a "red carpet" positioned in the middle so that at the end of creation time, the kids could walk the runway to the MC. That was the plan for this year until we had an extreme heat warning issued, and I decided it was best to keep this program inside. The contingency plan involved putting all the non-recyclables on the floor and the craft supplies on one table. We pulled together a punch of tables for the kids to create on, some with chairs and some without (as I've found, the kids are all different about their preference, so I leave it open).

I didn't want to miss out on the kids showing off their creations, so my contingency was a library parade. I told the kids 10 minutes prior to the end of the program, we'd go on a parade throughout the stacks.

Running the Program

Like with the beaded creations program, I made no plans. Instead, I made myself available to the kids for helping with cutting, knot tying, etc. I told the kids as they came to make anything they wanted to, and they did!

As soon as creation time was done, we lined up and took a tour of the library. Some of the kids thought this parade was the best part of the program because they got to have the attention of all the patrons. Everyone got to oooh and ahhh over their costumes. Costumes ranged from an incredible robot (body and helmit with a jet pack in the back!) to a mask with a straw attached (so she could wear a mask and still drink water), as well as crowns, wigs, and bubble wrap skirts. The teens who showed up made themselves an elephant hat (which she plans to wear for Halloween) and a mailbox hat. These kids were wildly creative and imaginative, and I'm eager to go through our photos, since I know I didn't get to see everything they made.

Once our parade was done, I took the kids back to our creation space and told them the program was over, but they should feel free to take any supplies they wanted to to continue their costumes at home. Lucky for me, many of them did, meaning I had fewer things to put back into storage for next year's costume show.

Lessons Learned

What I loved about this program was it really brought in all ages. I had very young kids and I had teenagers making costume pieces. They even helped one another out, which is always one of those end goals.

I had my intern helping me out with this program, but were I doing it again, I'd love more help. While it requires little in terms of set up and in instruction, it sure helps to have people around for clean up and for taking photos and helping kids with some of the harder tasks, such as cutting tape or making holds through cardboard, etc.

I'd also make the parade a bigger deal -- I can't get too down about this, though, since this was a serious last minute improvisation for the fact I decided not to hold the program outside in the heat. But the kids loved it so much, I do plan on doing that part again. The parents got a kick out of taking photos of their kids marching in the parade, and the kids liked to show off everything they'd made (and not all of them made costumes, so not having a runway show let everyone show off what they made, regardless of whether it was wearable or not).

This is a program I highly recommend for all ages, and it's one that can be done any time of the year, and one that could be particularly well done during April's Earth Week. What a way to encourage kids to recycle and to think about the ways the things they use every day can be re-purposed. We don't always have to teach through lecturing; sometimes, it's as simple as letting them create and discover.

Costs

$0.

Really, what do you have to lose?

Summer Reading: Week Two

I'm a week behind in wrapping up summer reading, so this week, there will be two in a row. This is for week two, where we got to do a lot of really exciting programs.

First, the stats: I took my counts last Thursday morning, and we had 75 teens signed up for summer reading, 252 youth age 4-12, and 51 pre-readers. That's nearly 400 people signed up already, which is almost what last year's numbers were all summer long, and we're only on week two. It feels wonderful!

We ran our regular Lego and Games club on Monday, where we had 27 attendees (up from the week before). I keep this program extremely low key, and I think that's part of why it's successful. We don't have a theme, and all I do is dump out a couple tubs of Legos on the floor and drag in a box of board games. This time, no one played games but instead, they all concentrated on making epic Lego creations.

On Tuesday, we had one of our performers who is brought in through our library system. We do all of our big programs outside under a tent, since our building's meeting room has very limited capacity. The weather looked chancey all day, but we had 97 attendees. The storyteller was a bit of a disappointment, saying she didn't need anything when really she needed a sound system (which we have). She wasn't super engaged with the kids, and she wasn't observant of what was going on around her, either. The sky grew very dark about half way through the performance, and our summer camp crew (which brings in 25-30 kids to the event) just left. After they left, so did everyone else, and the performance was cut way short. It was a little embarrassing on our end, but I'd rather the 97 attendees be safe from the weather than stay and not be. We ended up having some wicked storms from that point onto the rest of the day.

On Wednesday, we had a combined tween/teen program, where we brought in author Siobhan Vivian to do a writing workshop. There was a lot of stress to get her out here, actually, as the weather that impacted our performer on Tuesday also impacted her flight into Wisconsin. After a lot of tears and profanity on the phone, we snagged her a very early flight to Chicago Wednesday morning, where she rented a car and drove up. She did a program at three libraries that day, and I'm extremely pleased to say we drew 29 attendees. Each person who came who didn't already have a copy of her book Same Difference was able to get one, and they all got them signed after the performance. I also made everyone mini notebooks to keep, which featured the program name, date, and thank yous to our sponsors. I plan on talking about this event in more detail in another post, since it was such a great event.

After the event, I took a small group of my book club kids out for dinner with Siobhan, as well. They talked about the restaurant they ate at, and the way Siobhan talked to them about it made it so cool for the kids to see how questions can spark creativity and stories. It's one of those things I know the kids won't forget -- for them, this was meeting someone famous, and it was meeting someone who was interested in hearing their stories, too.

Thursday, I did an extremely easy program for just the teens -- ice cream creations. I cleaned out our staff kitchen, which had many half-full boxes of candy, cookies, sprinkles and more from various programs, including the candy bottle guessing game, then I made a run to the store to pick up 5 large tubs of ice cream. I also picked up a jug of chocolate sauce and a couple other sauces, a bunch of bananas, and laid out bowls, spoons, and scoops. Then, we opened the doors and told the teens to have fun. We had 29 show up for this super easy and relatively inexpensive program, and many of these attendees were the kinds of kids we'd never see in the library. All for free ice cream, indeed. But you know what? It got them in. We had a little drama with this program in policing the age of attendees, as the very young kids wanted in; we tempered this by telling the older kids to bring a scoop of ice cream out to their siblings after they ate.

Friday was our storytime, but I was on a plane down to New Orleans for the American Library Association conference, feeling pretty pleased with program attendance and signups this week. I feel like I know some of the areas where I can improve for the future, but for now, it's straight on to week three, which you'll hear about in the next couple of days.

Rock the Drop: Operation Teen Book Drop

I will be participating in this year's Readergirlz Rock the Drop! initiative. I have so many YA books sitting in my house, and what a perfect opportunity to release some of these into the wild. I plan on putting a pile in my teen department at the library, but I also plan on a guerrilla-style drop throughout town. You bet there will be pictures to follow.

If you have a pile of YA books sitting at your home, consider getting involved. It's an easy project to take part in, and what better way to celebrate teen lit during National Library Week than to pass it along? Click on the banner above for more details and to print off the book plates you can slip in your book bombs.

Asked & Answered: Teen Activities

I've hinted at some of the activities we've done for the high school book club, but I've been asked to talk a bit more about my use of unconventional methods for discussion. I'll let you know about two methods that have been huge hits.

First up, this:




For our discussion of Courtney Summers's Fall For Anything, I wanted to try something different. The book covers a heavy topic, and I wanted some way for the kids to talk without feeling put on the spot. Considering the success of our recent youth Lego club, I thought I'd try out a little construction with the teens. Little did I know that dropping down a table cloth and pouring out a couple of buckets of Legos would be like Christmas for teenagers.

The discussion involved having the teens depict a scene from the book in Legos. What they came up with totally delighted me and made me laugh so much. Not all of the kids finished the book -- I tell them if they make it to 50 pages and don't like the book to move on -- so those kids were able to build whatever they wanted. When they finished, I let them take their creations upstairs to our teen department and put them on display. They were incredibly proud of what they made.

I cannot believe how popular the Legos were with the teens. The Legos were so popular, in fact, they begged me to offer a teens-only Lego program and they begged me to do this kind of discussion again.

Fair enough.

A couple of weeks later, we were ready to discuss Blake Nelson's Paranoid Park at the library, and while I knew the kids wanted to do Lego discussion again, I wanted to change it up. So I did what I thought was only a natural progression:

If Legos were like Christmas, then Play-Doh was New Year's. I had a few containers of different colors, as well as a number of little tools for cutting and shaping the dough. Like with the Lego discussion, I asked the teens to depict a scene from the book with the Play-Doh. The results were hilarious and brilliant -- you wouldn't believe the amount of blood a teen boy can create with a little Play-Doh.

Both of these book discussions were successful and a lot of fun for both me as a facilitator (or enabler) and for the teens. I'm not a believer in keeping a book discussion rigid because the truth of the matter is that the kids don't always read the book. Things come up and they get busy, especially on a biweekly basis (that was their scheduling decision because my once-a-month suggestion was not enough meeting for them). Using fun, creative means of discussing means everyone can take part in the club, whether or not they finished or even started the book.

Next up, we're reading A. S. King's Please Ignore Vera Dietz, which they've all already told me they're enjoying greatly. I think we'll be making post cards Post Secret style with a bag of old magazines I have in my office -- an idea I got from Angie -- and I might even have the kids share some of their comments on the books we've read to make shelf/book talkers for those titles.

Superhero Party

Let's talk superheroes. Every kid loves them, and every kid wants to be one. So why not play into their interests with a super hero party?

That's precisely what I did for one of my spring break programs, and I did it station-style. I had very young kids and teenagers come, and everyone had fun. For many attendees, it was the thrill of coming somewhere dressed up.

When families entered the program room, they were given a golf pencil (those are in heavy supply in any library) and a check list of stations. Each one tested a superhero skill, and when all of the stations were completed, the new superheroes were given a certificate of graduation from superhero academy and then were given a superhero treat.

First up, every superhero needs a mask, so station number one was where the kids could make masks. I printed out two templates here, and with standard felt sheets, I could fit three templates on one. I traced the templates with permanent marker, cut them out, then left those, along with string and stick-on jewels and shapes, for the kids to decorate.



After mask-making, the superhero trainees were able to treat themselves at the food station. I purchased pre-packaged fruit snacks -- the local grocery store had superman, spider man, batman, and transformers. I was a little disappointed in the lack of representation of female superheroes, but I don't think the kids thought twice. In addition to the fruit snacks, I also had out m&ms, skittles, and jelly beans (you'll see why in a second).

To really give the kids something cool to see, I made colored ice cubes. In regular ice cube trays, I dropped 3-4 squirts of food coloring in red, yellow, and blue. After they froze, the colors looked really strong, and then I asked the kids whether they wanted squirt to drink or water. When the colored cubes were dropped in, their drink changed colors. In squirt, it was really cool to see what happened when two ice cubes dropped in: the color would split down the middle, so half the drink was blue and half was red. It's worth noting that you will get food dye on your hands, so serve them with a spoon or tongs, and don't worry about ruining an ice cube try. The dye will rinse off easily.

Our next station was one testing target skills.



For this station, I made up buckets and pulled out bean bags for a little bucket game. The kids love this, and they will do it again and again until they get them all. It is not as easy as it looks!

Another station I had set up was for testing brain power. How, you ask? I made up three jars filled with jelly beans (yellow and red), m&ms (blue), and lemon heads. I counted out how many of each I put into the jars, and I had the kids guess how many were in each, writing their guesses on the sheet at the station. The kids with the closest guesses would win the buckets. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of this station for me was that none of the kids were anywhere close to the right answers.

And then, I let them get out some aggression at the battle station.

I cut a pool noodle in half, and I blew up a few balloons with the hopes the kids would play with the balloons. Many chose to hit each other, which was my original intention, but I didn't know how parents would feel about it. Since the parents didn't seem to mind, I let them go at it. I think for most of the kids, this was a favorite station for obvious reasons.

Then it was brute strength training.

I set up a wall of mats from our children's room and let the kids have at knocking them down and building them back up.

I didn't have enough strength training here, so I decided one more strength test was necessary. And this station was, surprisingly, the most pricey to put together:


I spray painted two Styrofoam balls, then painted "500" on the sides of them. Holding them together was a simple rod. When I picked up the Styrofoam at the craft store, I was informed that the prices on these bad boys went up because they're made with petroleum. Thought that was worth passing along to anyone who may use similar materials and wonder why it costs $8 a pop for these.

I had one more station in the programming room for the program, which included these:

Why yes, those are spider webs. Throughout the children's area, I taped cut out cartoon villains and had the kids "capture the bad guys" by finding them, then taping them onto the spider webs.

Because our programming room is small, I moved a couple of stations into the actual children's area. These two were some of my favorites.

First, kids tested their agility by jumping through hoops:


Then they had to practice their balancing skills by walking up and down the aisle with a pair of books (superhero, of course) on their heads. And then, they had their biggest, most important superhero challenge.

It was time to save a life, of course.

This station took me the longest time to think through and plan. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to make any purchases for it, so I had to scour our building (including those crevices in the storage closets) for the right materials.


Does that not look like the coolest lava pit ever? My coworker covered the sides of a blow up wading pool with black construction paper, then created flames and embers around the sides. I pulled out two milk crates and a wide, thick board, sturdy enough to walk on. I had another coworker test out walking on the set up a few times before we decided to put bricks behind the milk crates for added stability. Voila! That was a heck of a cool lava pit, and while most people would want to save a baby, I thought saving a rabbit would be better (or a suitable substitute given the lack of baby dolls we have). This was another station that the kids loved, and some of them insisted on carrying the bunny over it more than once.

As I mentioned, as soon as the kids finished all of the stations, they came and found me back in the programming room. I awarded them their own superhero academy certificate (complete with their names and my signature as Queen of the Superheroes) and a tootsie roll pop.

The bulk of the cost for this program was my time -- I made fancy signage and certificates. The fruit snacks cost a bit, as did the Styrofoam balls, but otherwise, everything was stuff we owned. You could do this cheaper, too, and you could easily modify the stations. I was going to have kids make capes, having received a nice donation of fabric from our Friends group, but time wasn't on my side in planning.

Simple programming for all ages: cupcakes!

Last week was spring break here, and we offered a program every day for area youth. Perhaps my favorite was the easiest program: cupcakes! This program works for all ages, and it is incredibly easy to replicate.

My program was inspired by one of my favorite books:


And named after one of the fun Austin food trucks I used to walk past going to UT regularly:


The idea was to offer the supplies for people to come in and make their own fantasy cupcakes. I offered no instructions. Instead, I laid out a wealth of supplies and let them have at it. Their own imaginations were enough fuel!

First up, purchase a supply of undecorated cupcakes. You can make them yourself, though cost-wise, it's probably about the same to have them made by a local bakery than to do them yourself. There's also the cost of free time if you do it yourself. For 150 cupcakes, my local bakery (located in a grocery store) said they would charge me .40 each cupcake. $60 for 150 cupcakes sounded great to me. But I got luckier: they only charged me $40.


I laid out the cupcakes -- chocolate and white -- at the head table and then set up two separate rows of tables. The first looked like this:


Chocolate, strawberry, lemon, buttercream, and vanilla frosting cans were laid out, along with plastic knives. Cost was about $20 for that plus some sprinkles. But we didn't buy many toppings since our staff kitchen was flush with cool topping items from gingerbread house making in December and other events. This was a nice time to clean house a bit.

So my second rows of tables looked like this:


Sprinkles, edible glitter, skittles, m&ms, gummy worms, teddy grahams, and gel topping galore. I put the loose candy on paper plates, but in the future, I'd use spoons or something to make communal sharing less of a problem.

When the patrons came in for the program, they grabbed a plate, a napkin, a cupcake (or two or three) and then were directed to have fun. Here are some of their great creations:






This program was fun and easy, and everyone thought the cupcakes were delicious. Although we did a set time for the program -- 3 to 4 pm -- this could easily be run as a day-long passive program. We had enough left over to use for a Friday program, as well, so we served far more than the 60+ who showed up the day of the program. It works for all ages, too, making this a fun and easy family program.