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.

Poet Tea Tuesday

I am very passionate about poetry and its ability to move and connect people. Every year at the library where I work, there is a poetry contest. Children and teens are able to enter their poetry and then they are able to come read their poetry at the event. It is a really amazing event that I got to witness this year. In preparation and leading up to the event, it seemed like a good idea to have some poetry nights with the teens until the poetry contest. This would help them realize that they too can write poetry and have a piece to enter into the contest, and it would make poetry fun and accessible to them. Because of this, Poet Tea Tuesdays came about!

The idea for Poet Tea Tuesday is simple: have hot water, tea,  and hot cocoa and then provide an active or passive type of poetry for the teens to do. This is a great program for colder months, because the teens can show up, write a poem, get something warm to drink and hang out and discuss their poems.

Since I think poetry is awesome at any time, here are some ideas to get a similar program started!

Poetry Cubes: Find a simple paper box template, add images and words, and then have the teens cut them out and assemble the boxes. Roll the box, and whatever image or word appears they have to include it in a poem or write a poem about it.

Post-it note Poetry: I really like this one! Have the teens all write a poem on a post-it note. To keep it interesting, provide different sizes and colors of post-it notes. They can then post the poem on a wall of the library. (Encourage library appropriate language, most teens do this anyway if the idea is already in place. Also, if they are comfortable with you, they will share their poetry work and you can double check that it is appropriate. I did not really worry about this too much, I appreciate expression, and my advice is to put up the library appropriate ones, but if a teen writes something that isn't have them take that one home and write another one for the library. Look at that you just got a teen to write two poems instead of one! Hurrah!)

Last idea, and stay tuned for more: Magnetic poetry! Provide a kit and several metal objects and let the teens create! Think of the largest metal thing that is in the library that you can provide for the teens (book cart, chair, bookshelf, refrigerator maybe not so much) and let them make a poem on that. I had some really amazing poems from this session, from cat poems (yay!) to really deep poetry all from those magnetic word kits. They are more than just magnets!

What is your favorite poem or poet? Leave a comment!
Dawn states: poetry is awesome! dstates@yorklibraries.org

Food Science: Chocolate!

Chocolate is one of those foods that conjures a lot of memories, associations, and myths. Therefore it was a great choice for doing some science! The science part of this food science was pretty simple. The teens took a chip of dark, milk, and white chocolate and observed how fast each of these various types of chocolate melted. One set was kept at room temperature, one was held in their hand, and one they held on their tongue to see which type of chocolate melted first under all three conditions.

The next made a double-boiler and observed what temperature chocolate melts at, how to temper chocolate (the stage that chocolate is made into awesome good looking candy instead of a splotchy mess.), and why chocolate is melted so precisely instead of just boiling it.

After they have a pan of melted and tempered chocolate, the teens were then able to make their own unique chocolate pops and try out some different flavors! They tried nearly everything, in fact one chocolate lollipop was just all the toppings. I was told it was delicious...

The more complicated and myth-busting part of the chocolate science came with the chocolate quiz. The quiz had such questions as:
True or False: Even though it doesn't kill them, cats will also eat chocolate, just like dogs.
Answer: False. Nah. They can't taste sweet things. It is probably also bad for cats, but cats don't eat chocolate and humans can't make them. Do anything. Ever.
And: True or False: Chocolate has more than 350 known chemicals in it.
Answer: True. Chocolate has 380 chemicals in it...that we currently know of.

If anyone would like this quiz, a supply list, or to know more about the process of tempering chocolate, send me an email at: dstates@yorklibraries.org

Here is a question for everyone else, leave your answer in the comments! (No looking up the answer either! :p)

True or False: Chocolate was first consumed in bar form.

Dawn states: Dark chocolate is the best.