Nostalgia Week Continued

The week's nostalgia continues with T.V. Trivia! The teens gave a list of shows that they remembered well and asked for trivia based on that. We then had to figure out how to limit this trivia and also make it engaging but not too easy for the teens!
The easiest way to do this was to pick a few categories and then present it to the teens in a Jeopardy-style game, with higher points being given for harder questions. (I had to be reminded how Jeopardy was played exactly.) This type of trivia can be applied to many different things, not just T.V. Be creative with it! (Anime trivia? Food trivia? Book trivia?) Have you played trivia in your library? If so what was it?
With our T.V. trivia, Legends of  the Hidden Temple, Spongebob, Doug, Rugrats and Ren and Stimpy were the shows that were picked. The teens could then choose from various categories, such as clip, character, or even a wildcard! This trivia ended up being a little harder for the teens than anticipated as they were nostalgic about the shows for a reason, they did not exactly remember everything about them! So, to make up for this everyone at the end who was able to stay got free DVD coupons! It was a fun night and can be applied to other situations and categories.
Dawn states: I am nostalgic about the Lone Ranger! Hi yo Silver, away!

Nostalgia Week

So this week at the library we are doing a Nostalgia week. To celebrate this we had the teens think of a decade they connected with and then based the entire week off of this decade. Tonight, Art Club is themed from the nineties (making me feel old over here) and the art will be making pogs! Does everyone remember these discs of cardboard that were stacked and then attempted to flip by slamming a "slammer" down on the stack? I do! I had a really cool set of pogs with Felix the cat on them when I was younger. Check out these awesome pogs that we made in Art Club!
Email me for the directions or to reminisce about the 90's! dstates@yorklibraries.org
Dawn states: I liked making my own set of pogs!

Art Club: Guest Artist

Lately I had been thinking about what could give art club a little more art and a little more pizazz. I came up with the idea of having guest artists come to the library and show off their awesome skills! The first artist came last night to show the teens how to draw some comics. (Which actually ties very well into our theme of superheroes.) It went stupendously! (Until it rained, then everyone scattered because most of them walk to the library.)
The artist last night was actually one of our staff members who draws amazing comics! He had a wonderful set-up which included some pre-drawn comic style boxes. These pre-drawn boxes were either blank, with caption bubbles, or with characters or dialogue. This was so that even those teens who did not feel like they could draw could participate and make something cool. Here are the results! I will be posting about more artists who participate throughout the summer and I look forward to seeing all the awesome things! Ask around and see if there are any local artists who would be interested in doing something like this, or even ask your staff! You never know who may have a hidden talent waiting to be unmasked!
Email me for questions, comments or for some comic templates. dstates@yorklibraries.org
Dawn states: I made a cat comic. Because I really like cats. Yeah.

TAB: Or what the Teens Want

How do you get in touch with your teens, find out their interests, and know what is current among them? Do you guess? Do you ask them? Do you look around and see what other teens are doing? While these are all good starting points, I really suggest starting a Teen advisory group. There are lots of catchy names for a group like this, but the bottom line is that it is created of teens who are active and invested in the library and who can give feedback on needs that they see or programs that they want.
The group of TAB (teen advisory board) at my library is really interested and engaged in the activities that happen here and some examples of some awesome things that happened because of their ideas are: Honey science, GSA, Art Clubs, and various other parties and activities. Even if the group of teens within the library is small, it is still good to put together a group like this and talk to them about ideas.
A simple way to organize the group is to have a snack, have a game, and then have an agenda and set meeting time. The set time helps them remember when it is and helps make sure that there are consistent results for whoever is leading the group, and the agenda helps them get started on topics, stay on task, makes sure everything gets covered, and gives them starting points for what to talk about.
This can be a really fun time for you and the teens to discover interests and have good ideas! For questions regarding starting a teen group, please email me at dstates@yorklibraries.org.

Dawn states: TAB.....cats, smoothies, silliness, ideas. It happens here.                                                                                                    

GSA

I would like to take this time to blog about a program that I think is really important. It is the GSA meetings that take place in our library. This group is a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) and is a teen-motivated and driven group that focuses on providing a safe place for all teens.

This group has just started meeting this year, and it is amazing to see it grow and blossom. It started with a few teens who thought that it was a needed group and program and has now grown to include their friends. They are working on reaching out to the community at large by attending Equality Fest. Equality Fest is about raising awareness and acceptance for all and more about it can be found at this link: http://www.equalityfestyork.com/

Some things that happen at GSA are snacks, zine pages (to hand out at Equality Fest), a support board, and great discussions about how to be an ally, positive phrases and future events (such as a Dress Day where teens of all genders can come try on different clothes!) I am excited by what these teens are doing and I am happy to facilitate a group of caring and accepting teens in this community and the world.

Dawn states: Think about how you can foster caring and acceptance with your teens!

Food Science: Honey, a sweet success

I talked about how we were doing honey science here at the library, but I did not mention how it went because we had not done the program yet. It went really well! We had a smaller group of teens, but most of them were really invested in learning about honey and what makes it so special. I got to share with the teens why honey never goes bad, different tasting honey, what density and viscosity is, and of course honey cookies.
These things were all exciting for the teens, as some of them knew that honey never went bad but did not know why that was and some of them had honey before but never different flavors. It was great to expose them to these aspects of honey and I think the information will "stick" with them. (Especially the flavors of honey, wildflower was unanimously voted as a bad flavor. Who would have guessed!)
Honey cookies was a great way to end this science, and they noted some differences in flavor and wanted the recipe to take home and continue making these cookies! If anyone wants this recipe, the links, or the handouts I used, please feel free to email me at dstates@yorklibraries.org
Also, check out these great photos from the science provided by one of our teens!
Dawn states: I am stuck on putting honey in my tea!

One of my teens took some awesome photos, but there is one in there of me checking my notes and some other silly madness! Cracked me up!

Art Club: plants

For Earth day last month we did a really fun art club. At our library, we have a Keurig machine for the coffee (we are working on changing this) I had been trying to think of a way to recycle the cups from the machine and I came up with the idea of using the leftover cups as seed starters! In this idea, we were doing some recycling and also planting some seeds. It is a nice art club to do something for the earth and also it is pretty easy!
Here is the needed supply list: soil, seeds, water, mist bottle, k-cups, egg cartons to put the k-cups in, and a nice sunny window. You will also need to mark the k-cups with what you put in them. I am also hoping to get another art club out of this one, as we planted pumpkins and hope to use these pumpkins for an art club in October. It is also important to remember that a success rate is not guaranteed, but it is fun to get some little sprouts!

Here is a picture of the pumpkins so far! So cute! Dawn states: starting seeds is a nice way to help the earth on any day, not just earth day.