Rifftrax with Teens - Library Life

I was a teenager when I discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the first time. It was pretty magical. While channel surfing I came to the sci-fi channel and found a bad old movie on. I soon realized that people were talking over it and making funny jokes! I think a bunch of my friends discovered it around the same time because we would talk about it and have inside jokes influenced by MST3K. Fast forward a few years when as an adult I mentioned to someone how much I loved MST3K. The friend I was talking to, Mark, said "hey those guys are still riffing movies." He showed me RiffTrax. I was ecstatic! It was just like MST3k but with newer releases!

Since it was something I loved so much as a teen, I thought the teens at the library might also get a kick out of it. After mentioning it to the teen librarian, we set out looking up what riffs we could use. We did Avengers first and got a 'meh' review from the kids. We tried it again with the Hunger Games and I was thrilled to see them enjoy it. Here is a trailer for your enjoyment.



This is such a great simple idea to do with teens! All that is needed is a viewing space, a copy of the movie, the audio commentary and a speaker system. We are lucky enough to have a TV in the teen center and showed it on that. I downloaded the commentary from RiffTrax. They cost around four to five dollars. I then put that track on an iPod and used an iHome to play it along with the movie. The hardest part was getting the commentary and the movie in sync, so at first some of the jokes didn't match up. However I had one teen who was hell bent on getting them to match!



Afterwards they asked when we were going to do RiffTrax again. Librarian win! So head on over to RiffTrax and try it out at your library. This could also work with millennials because, like me, they grew up watching MST3K and miss it. If you try it in your library, let me know how it works out!

Library Card Sign Up Month Display - Library Life

We are in September, Fall time (ya-hoo!) This is also library card sign up month. To celebrate I made a very bulletin board display that is all about libraries!

I thought about doing another back to school display, like last year, however, I decided to switch it up a bit. Besides,the rest of the room was pretty decked out in with a back to school theme. First thing I needed for this display was a good quote! I am a librarian that like’s to pun-tificate and come up with cheesey rhymes, so I was excited when I found this quote on pinterest inspired by Arthur! Now that I had my quote, I needed a fun visual element. I decided on making a giant library card, but whose card would it be?! I chose one of the most fun characters that I could think of, Mo Willem’s Pigeon! Now that I had all of my ideas organized, it was time to put it all together!

For the background, I used a vynil table cloth from the dollar store. They make bulletin board displays so easy because they are lightweight and won't fade. I chose a nice red (because it goes with our library’s colors) For the giant library card, I used some oak tag and cut a square in it (for the ‘patron’ picture). I used some sharpie’s to make the library’s logo and it came out pretty good for free-handing it. Next my friend Annmarie drew a Pigeon on some teal construction paper. I added some extra details and stuck him on the card.

For the quote I used my silhouette machine for most of the letters. I wanted to emphasis ‘Library card’. I found this printable of an old check out card, it’s from The Creative Place blog. I used this printable and formatted it in Microsoft publisher and added the letters on the cards. I printed them out and attached them to some card stock because they were a little flimsy. I strung some yarn across the display and attached the letters using tiny clothes pins.

It came together quite nicely and I think it looks great! Now I’m starting to think about my Halloween display!

Harry Potter Contest - Library Life

Something really really cool happened a few weeks ago. I was sent an email let me know that Scholastic was holding a contest in celebration of Harry Potter's 15th anniversary. We had to write an essay about a Harry Potter event our library would hold and what we would do to celebrate. I sent it to the head of teens and we collaborated and submitted our ideas. A few weeks later, to my complete surprise, the head of teens came up to me saying that we won! I was flabbergasted, our little library out of 15 in the entire country!

So now we have a few weeks to plan our epic program. I have been busy at work making some pretty awesome stuff for it. I just wanted to give you a little preview.... 

                             

The rest of the library crew and I are making more fun exciting things and I'll be updating you on what is to come! 

Father's Day Card - Kids craft

So Father's Day is just around the corner. Did you take care of your pops?! Here is the card I made for my Dad. Even though he doesn't currently have a mustache, he had one for a long time so it still works.

Pops and I

I helped the youngins at work create their own Father's Day cards. It uses the concept of negative space, which of course will go over the little ones heads, but thats ok. Its a fun craft for any age and the results look pretty awesome. This technique can also be adapted for just about any occasion. Here is what you can do to make your own!

Materials & Tools: 

• Card Stock
• Contact paper 
• Scissors 
• Crayons 

Instructions

• Trace and Cut out some letters out of contact paper. (or shapes if your doing something else) 
• Peel and stick the letters on the cardstock 
• Break out the crayons and go nuts! You can scribble or make patterns, have fun with it!
• Peel off the letters to reveal the card.
• This is an additional step, I printed out a little father's day poem and had the kids glue it into there cards. 

Where's Waldo (at the Library) - Library Life

January is kind of a quiet time at the library, so I thought it would be a great time for a contest! I had the Where's Waldo idea for a while and I wasn't able to do it until now! The idea is basically a scavenger hunt around the Children's room with characters from the Waldo series. So far it has been getting a good reaction and it is a lot of fun to watch kids try to find all of the characters. One day Tim came for a visit. I told him about the Waldo's and he felt the need to participate as well!

Here is how I ran the contest. I rounded up all of the characters which included Waldo, Woof, Wilma, Odlaw and Wizard Whitebeard. I found some images of them and had them laminated. I sent the aids to go on recon and hide the characters all over the children's room. They did a really great job because I had trouble finding them the first time. Next to keep track of entries, I made forms for kids to write their info. I also put small images of the characters so the kids knew who to look for.

Its a fun contest and the kids enjoyed it. This won't be the last of scavenger hunt type contests be sure to look for more in the future!