Teen Tech Week Bingo (Library Life)

March has brought about another Teen Tech Week. This is an annual event that encourages teen library goers to use the libraries non-print resources for fun and for academics. After seeing so many QR code scavenger hunts I really thought it would be cool to do in town because we are located in such a neat little village. However March is still cold, and I’m not sure parents would appreciate sending their kids all over town. However I helped come up with something similar, an interactive game of BINGO!!

This ain’t your run of the mill bingo game. Each square features a different task that the teens had to complete. Each task is technology related and vary. Tasks were as simple as following the library’s Goodreads page, or involve them recording a video book talk on either vine or youtube. Every time a task is completed they saw a librarian that stamped their bingo card. Once they made a straight line or a diagonal, they won a prize.

We wanted to make sure the kids shared their content with us so we asked that most of the tasks be submitted to us by email or shared with us on social media. We also created a hashtag teens could tag the stuff they were doing for the contest.

Something that I didn't take into account, was that not all kids use social media. A lot of the younger teens are not allowed to go on certain sites, so weren't able to complete some of the tasks. Luckily I included a few tasks that were about technology, but did not require social media. I asked them a few tech related question that they had to answer. An example is I asked them to define an internet troll and one tasked asked them to translate binary. 

It was a fun contest and I hope we get to do it again next year.

Monsters Display - Library Life

Since October is upon us it was time to update my display! I was trying to think of a good idea for this one. I didn't want anything too scary or too cheesey. I didn't want to put 'Read BOOOOOks'. I like a good pun but I wanted something clever! When I came across the quote 'A Book a Day Keeps the Monsters Away'  I knew what to do!

I had my quote, now I needed some monsters! I thought I would use some literary monsters including: Leonardo (the terrible monster), Ed Emberly's Big Green Monster, Grover and Mike Wiskowski. I enlisted the help of our resident artists, Morgan and Annmarie. They constructed these guys and they came out awesome! The used some cool spooky fonts on picmonkey and cut the letters out on my silhouette machine.

Banned Book Week Display - Library Life

Last week was Banned Book Week. You might be wondering, 'Why is the library promoting such scandalous books?' Well the only thing that is a scandal is that books are being challenged and removed from the collection! A person has the right to challenge a book that they find offensive, however the removal of said book denies other people the right to read it. The books that have been banned or challenge will surprise you. Its not all steamy teen novels! Captain Underpants, Where the Wild Things Are and Harry Potter are all books that have been banned. Banned Book Week is intended to raise awareness and make readers realize and exercise their right to choose whatever they want to read!

I teamed up with another librarian, Colleen. We both came across some pictures of people posing with banned books in a faux police line up. Colleen handled the creation of the police line-up and book together other promotional materials and organized a raffle. I helped by using the chalk board technique to make the sign kids held up.

I also made letters spelling out Banned Book Week. We put them on the window and they looked pretty cool. I took an old book and tore out the pages. Before you get all on my case about destroying a book... it was being weeded because it was super old and was a bit stinky. Also it was One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest a banned book! I used my super hand silhouette cameo and make the letters. I glue them on top of some card stock to reinforce it. I also had the letters laminated so that way we can use them again next year!

Harry Potter Celebration

This past week has been all about the bit Harry Potter Celebration! I was part of a winning team for a contest Scholastic held to commemorate 15 years since Harry Potter was first published. (Read about my excitement here!)

Erin and I have been working really hard to put this thing together. Tuesday was the big day and to our amazement everything came together perfectly. It was so much work and I was exhausted by the end of the day, however we both agreed that it was worth it and it made us love our jobs!

Now for your enjoyment, here is what we did throughout the entire celebration.

In an effort to hype it up I made a bulletin board display. I used some white oak tag and made a giant ticket to the Hogwarts Express. I drew the designs on the ticket with a brown sharpie and used my trusty silhouette machine to cut out the letters. To announce the program I made a proclamation board listing the program information. Above these items it says "Get Your Ticket to Hogwarts"

The display also features some of the contests we have going on, Book cover design contest and the Horcrux Hunt.

I came across the Horcrux Hunt on pinterest. It reminded me of our Where's Waldo contest that was quite a hit. I also thought it was a genius idea and tied into the series quite well. If you are in the midst of reading Harry Potter and not familiar with Horcruxes this may help. (Warning potential spoilers) So I printed out pictures of each of the notorious artifacts that became horcruxes and I hid them around the room. I made some entry forms and sent the kids on a scavenger hunt. Its a lot of fun to watch kids walk around the room trying to find them while I tease them with hints.

As a part of the 15 year anniversary Scholastic has re-issued the books with new cover art. I thought kids would also want to put their own spin on cover art. We made up a blank template and let kids make their own covers. Each submission is going into a raffle to win a copy of the book.

They had to enter via Platform 9 3/4

So we had the promotional stuff done, we needed to figure out the specifics of the program. Luckily our winning essay had it all mapped out but we just needed to iron out the details. Since we wanted to keep a maximum amount of kids entertained at the same time, we decided that we would 'sort' them into houses upon check in. Margaret was really awesome doing this job because she made lots of funny little jokes just like the real sorting hat! Then the kids stayed with their houses and then were sent to a station and they were able to mingle throughout the program. The stations we came up with were:

Honeydukes (food fun time)
Olivander's
Divination
Hogwarts a History
Quidditch
Movie Magic

Honeydukes was all about the food. A program with this much activity, needed sugar! The kids were given butterbeer, cupcakes, gummy frogs and Erin worked really hard making some fizzing whizbees. To add some fun to it we also divided up some of the Bertie Bots Every Flavor beans and kids did a blind taste test and had to figure out what flavor they were eating. I was told soap was very popular.

In the background, you can see some of the book covers the kids designed!

Olivander's is the place where every Hogwarts student gets their wand. I thought it appropriate to name our own wand craft station after the shop. This wants were really simple to make. Kids were given a chop stick and covered it in duct tape. Air dry clay was also available so kids could add some embellishments to their wands. We also used a tiny bit of glitter to make it more magical.

For the divination station the kids made fortune tellers to predict the future! These are the same fortune teller you probably made in middle school to try to figure out which classmates had crushes on each other.

Hogwarts a History was the station that I was in charge of. It was all about Harry Potter trivia. Most of the questions were from my ol' noggin, but when I wasn't sure what to ask I used the book of Harry Potter Trifles, Trivia and Particularities. I stumped the kids a few times, but most of them were experts!

I have tons of PVC pipe in my garage so I put it to good use. I made a hoop and the kids got to play a little quidditch, the favorite sport of wizards everywhere. I brought in my broom and kids had to 'ride' it while hurling a ball at the hoop. It took quite a beating.

Over the summer a motion picture museum did a few programs. When they noticed our advertisements for the celebration, they offered their services. They brought a green screen, and kids got to pretend they were flying around in a quidditch match. I had a lot of fun with this myself.

While kids were mingling from station to station, the room was decorated to the max! We hung starry gossamer and hung stars from the ceiling. We also found some pretty cool posters hung those around to (thanks internet!) To add more ambiance, we decorated each table with some potion bottles. (here's a tutorial)

There also some great photo opps, I made a frame modeled after Sirius Black's notorious wanted poster. Kids were able to make to stick there own faces in it! That was a fun hit, because a lot of staff members made use of it. We were also lucky to borrow some other items for great photo opportunities. A few years back, the local high school had a Potter themed prom (I was so jealous!) so we were able to borrow some of the pieces to decorate the building.

Towards the end of the program, all of the kids took their name tags and put them into a cauldron and we drew some prizes. On their way out, each kid was given a copy of the book.

It was so amazingly fun and I'm still excited that we were one of the 15 libraries chosen. I couldn't have done it with out Erin and all of the other staff there to help. Seeing all of those happy faces and the kids just as excited as me makes me so happy that this is my job. Harry Potter has a very special place in my heart, not just because its awesome fantasy nerdness. When the books came out, I wasn't the greatest student and I hated to read. After goofing on someone for reading it, they replied, don't knock it until you try it. I did and I have been reading every since. Those books made reading magical.

Life thus far....

Summer is starting to wind down. I'm kind of half sad and half excited. I'm ready for a new season and for things to be less hectic at work. I'm also excited because Tim and I decided that we are going to have another Halloween party this year. Whoo-hoo! In the mean time I have been entertaining my self with various projects and fun things... here is what I have been up to.

our rendezvous point

The Accomplice 
I had heard about this through some librarian friends and it sounded pretty neat. When I came across a groupon for it, I surprised Tim and we got tickets. After my ticket's were purchased I received a phone call from a mysterious person with a very thick New Yorker accent. I was instructed to meet at the South Street Seaport and there I would be contacted by someone. Sure enough the next day I went to the exact spot and a mysterious character approached us asking if we got a message. We were joined by another group of people and the mysterious character gave us an important set of instructions and we were off for a day of adventure.
The Accomplice is part theatre, interactive mystery and city adventure. We were given instructions and clues and together we had to figure it out. The real fun of it was trying to figure out who was in on it and who was just an innocent by stander. I'm not going to give too much away (because spoilers!) but the day involved buy a frog, walking through China town, and trying to locate nefarious characters. It was so much fun! Tim and I both want to do it again with some of our friends. If you every find yourself in NYC then check it out!

Library programs...
The past few weeks at work have been devoted to programing! I am working really hard on all of the Harry Potter stuff because the big program is almost a week away! I made this pretty awesome bulletin board display to promote it. I also featured some contests including a Book Design contest and Horcrux hunt. I'll be posting details about it soon!
I also did a program for the other British thing that I'm ridiculously obsessed with, Doctor Who. You can check out all the details about that adventure here.

My life hasn't been all solving mysteries in the city and work. I got in some r & r when I had a beach day with me and some lady friends. It was nice to just be lazy for an afternoon. I was so relaxed that I forgot to reapply sunscreen and now I'm nursing a pretty painful sunburn!

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! 

Sand collage kids craft

 

This years Summer Reading Program theme is 'Dig into Reading!' so there has been lots of dirt and fun messes through out the summer so far. We had a bunch of colored sand in our craft closet so I came up with this idea of making some fantastic art with it. The technique is sort of similar to how you had glitter to crafts. This project was also great for our youngest patrons. There only so many music and movement programs you can do with 2 and 3 year olds, and I felt like our guys needed to get a little crafty. The kids that came really had a lot of fun with this project and a lot of older siblings joined in on the fun. There was even one father who was proud of his own sand collage masterpiece. Here is how you do this with your own group of kids!

Materials & Tools

• Colored Sand
• Salt/pepper shakers (I found mine at the Dollar Tree)
• Construction Paper
• Glue Sticks
• Clear contact paper (optional)
• Crayons (optional)

Instructions

• Fill salt/pepper shakers with different colors of sand
• Kids take the glue stick and 'draw' their shapes
• Kids take the salt/pepper shaker and sprinkle it over their picture. Shake picture over a scrap piece of paper (so the sand can be recycled)
• Kids can repeat the last step until they are satisfied with their picture
• When I did this craft, I put out crayons so that kids can add some more artistic flair to their picture
• Once they were completely done I stuck a piece of clear contact paper over the picture so it preserved the picture while also contained any loose pieces of sand

 

 

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Much Ado About Joss Whedon

I have been quite the busy lady latley and have been up to all sorts of crafty things. This past week I did something really cool and super nerdy. I participated in Much Ado About Joss Whedon at the West Hampton Free Library. I packed up my supplies and was off on a crafty adventure!

If you don't know who Joss Whedon is and you consider yourself a nerd, you're doing it wrong. This is a man that has touch so many wonderful amazing things in pop-culture. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and more recently the Avengers. He was even one of the writers of the original Toy Story! Do your nerd homework and consume all of the the things he has touched.

In conjunction with the release of Whedon's version of Much Ado About Nothing, West Hampton Free Library had an entire weeks worth of Whedon based programing! Some of the programs which included a retrospective of his work and Shakespeare and Shwarma.

I was called in to help with Wednesday's program, Dr. Horrible and T-shirt making. The idea was that while we are viewing Dr. Horrible, program goers will get to make their very own t-shirt featuring something from the Whedon-verse! I put my trusty silhouette machine to work and made some great stencils featuring some great Whedon characters. I used my trusty old freezer paper stencil technique. Here are the stencils patrons got to choose from.

I set up an assembly line type station. It came out looking pretty cool. The shirts came out pretty great, however some of the paint bled a little bit, so that was a bummer. I used this t-shirt paint spray for the first (and probably last) time.

It went pretty well. Matt and Caitie even came out to show some support! I met a lot of cool people that love this nerd stuff as much as I do. Here are some of the results of the night.

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Poet-tree Display

Hey its April which is Poetry Month! Here is a bulletin board display I did last year to celebrate...

It was a pretty simple display, as you can see. All I had to do was make a bare tree trunk. I invited the kids to make this tree full, by adding their own poems. I made up a leaf template and made copies on scrap paper (I'm all about recycling) Then I left some blanks out with a sign inviting them to either create their own poem or write one of their favorites  To get the tree started I made my co-workers all write a poem. To top it off, I made up some giant letters that I think add to the quirkiness of the display. 

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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!

Comic Con 101

Today was an exciting day for me. I was lucky enough to showcase some of my crafts for some Suffolk County librarians. It was all a part of, Comic Con 101. An event for librarians to share ideas to create a Comic Con like experience at their own library for their teen patrons. I was glad to meet so many fellow librarians (and nerds). I was so honored that Barbara Moon asked me to participate. I even won a prize! I won this nifty Dave Roman picture!

Any way onto what I did. I focused my area on three different fandoms, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Zombies.

Last May 4th (May the 4th be With you) I held a very successful Star Wars program. It was so much fun and I was glad to see that the Yoda ears were a big hit among the librarians. Here is how you can make your own Yoda ears or Leia Buns.

Materials:
Green Card stock (Yoda Ears)
Brown card stock (Leia Buns)
White oak tag (head band)
Stapler
Markers
Gems (optional)

Instructions

• I free handed a template for some Yoda ears and made a bunch. Be sure to leave a flap (this gets folded and stapled to the head band, so your ears are all floppy) 
• The buns are just big circles 
• the head bands measured 1 1/2 inches x 21 inches 
• Trace and cut out all of your pieces! 
• The kids can decorate the ears/buns before assembling. You can use markers or gems to really glam up those Leia buns 
• Take the strap and measure it on your head then staple
• For the ears fold those flap (as mentioned earlier) and staple them to the headband
• You are ready to use the force! 

You can read about my complete Star Wars Day experience, here. Theres more info on light sabers, snacks and even some games! If your looking for more Star Wars stuff check it out! 

I was really excited to see that a lot of librarian's not only recognized the Doctor Who stuff but they loved it just as much as me! If you aren't familiar with the Doctor here are some quick facts:

• Doctor Who is a BBC series that has been on the air since 1963
• The Doctor is an alien, a Time Lord, from the planet Gallefrey. He is the last of the Time Lords and has two hearts
• He travels through time and space righting wrongs and fighting evil. This includes Daleks, Cyber men and the Angels
• He Traves via TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space). It has a perception filter making it look like a blue police box and it is bigger on the inside. 
• The Doctor hardly travels alone and has companions
• The Doctor's weapons of choice include, books, his wits and Sonic Screwdriver

I made some shrink plastic key chains as a craft example. They are quite simple and come out looking so great! Here is how you can make your own:

Materials:

• Shrink Plastic (better known as Shrinky Dinks) are avaible in blank or printable sheets.
• Sharpie Marker
• Colored Pencils 
• Scissors 
• Brown grocery bag
• Toaster Oven 

Instructions

• Do some digging online for images you want to use. Here is what I found: 

• Be sure to make the images bigger than your desired finished size (because they do shrink) I resized and configured the images in Publisher. Also the instructions of the shrink plastic inclue a sizing ruling to help you determine how small and image will become.

• Trace and color your images on the shrink plastic. Trace the image with sharpie marker (on the glossy side). Flip the plastic over and color with colored pencil on the other side (you can also use paint and markers as long as they are NOT waterbased! 
• Cut out your images. Punch a hole if you are creating charms
• Pre heat the toaster oven to 325 degrees
• While the oven is pre heating, take the brown grocery bag and cut out a rectangle shape. 
• Place plastic, colored side up, on top of rectangle shape and place it in the oven
• Be sure to keep an eye on it so it won't melt. You will see the plastic shrivel then flatten out. Once it is flat you can take it out of the oven and let them cool down

Zombies 

In October I held a zombie program for tweens and helped the teen librarian do a similar program for the older teens. This involved zombie make-up, a zombie fashion show and trivia questions. I also made a zombie survival game in which I presented the kids with a zombie senario with options. Their survival depended on which choices they made. For the tweens everyone survived, for the teens they all got infected and learned that the zombie apocalypse was caused by bad mayo.

The teen librarian also made up some Zombie standees and the kids used nerf guns and did some target practice. The teen librarian even volunteered as a walking target! The zombie target practice was a big hit so I brought the standees and a nerf gun to demonstrate.