With funding through ALA's Libraries Ready to Code, we collaborated with a community makerspace and the local Boys & Girls Club to offer coding programs at three locations.
In addition to the Boys & Girls Club and the community makerspace, we also held programs at the library. Participating students ranged from third grade through high school.
Actual text message exchange between one of the authors of this blog and her child:
This program was offered as part of Thinking Money exhibit, a traveling exhibit about financial literacy offered by the ALA Public Programs Office and the FINRA Foundation.
Builder’s Club: Tween Edition is a hands-on, collaborative STEAM program for children ages 9 to 14. During each session, a library facilitator introduces a new topic for tweens to explore and practice.
Personalize your school locker with handcrafted bling! Middle schoolers were welcomed to join us in school-themed crafting that would add flair to their lockers while adding organizational value at the same time.
This program is run once a month by a local cook and educator. She teaches children in grades second through sixth how to cook using our new mobile kitchen cart (Charlie Cart) here at the library. Participants gain culinary skills and use creativity and math skills to bake, cook and create.
Many of us feel confident hosting events in person, and after these last few years, some of us feel confident running virtual events as well. But it can feel a bit more intimidating to think of doing both formats at once in a hybrid event.
April is Financial Literacy Month! How do you teach financial literacy to the younger crowds at your library?
On December 22, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope will launch into space! Using revolutionary and advanced technology, the infrared telescope will study every phase of cosmic history. Will the greatest questions on the origins of our universe finally be solved?
Get ready for this historic event at your library by directing curious patrons to reliable information. The launch also serves as the perfect opportunity to plan some fun STEAM programming virtually or in-person!
Virtual Minecraft Club is an online adaptation of our original Minecraft Club program, a program for ages 6 and up to collaborate, compete and build with other local fans on all supported Minecraft platforms.
Virtual Minecraft Club, like its in-person predecessor, happens for one hour once per week.
This year’s Teen Tech Week (TTW) theme is Libraries are for Creating, with events taking place March 4 to 10, 2018. Teen Tech Week was created by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), and this year's theme is aimed at encouraging teens to take advantage of “digital tools offered through the library to become content creators, and to leverage library resources to share out their creations.”
Imagine our surprise when we found out a rogue scientist had set up a lab right here in the library ... and, you guessed it, things have gone awry. The tests have gotten out of control, and we’re now overrun with zombies!
In this fun after-hours program, young adult patrons came to the library ready to battle the hordes. Their challenge: use their smarts to decode clues ... or become one of the infected.
About five years ago, I created a program called Haunted Library. Our Teen Advisory Group (TAG) really looked forward to this program every year. They absolutely loved planning this event, making up different themes each year and going all out from the beginning of the school year until Halloween. It was so awesome because they were fully invested.
Well, it's been a busy few weeks at my library with our summer and summer reading programs, as well as our Lunch at the Library program all starting at the same time. This year, we decided to have craft programs for tweens and teens after the lunch program, and we ended up with a very big crowd.
This summer I decided to challenge myself before my teens even had the chance to say, "Mrs. Librarian Lady, I'm so bored!" I’ve already created a list with go-to crafts and activities to entertain teens all summer long. My challenge is for all you teen programming staff out there to grab your shades, slather on some sunblock and live it up this summer with your teens!
Have you ever heard the saying "April showers bring May flowers?" As we all know, April is known for its dreary weather, while May brings warm weather, blooming flowers and buzzing bees. It's nice to think of this saying when it's raining; it helps to know that the warm weather and the lovely flowers are on their way.
I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day. You're probably wondering how I could not like hearts, flowers, chocolates and those lovey-dovey sayings. Well, here's how it happened: One fateful night (too many years ago to admit), I had the worst Valentine's Day of my life.
For the past few months, I have been trying to pamper myself a little more than usual. I tend to work long hours and do a lot of running around for work, so when I get home my feet are very tired. I decided to start getting pedicures at least once a month and now my feet feel great and look pretty awesome. My favorite part is picking out the color and then blingling it out with glitter!
School's out, and all the kids are down at the library looking for fun and creative things to do. Now that they can hang out and spend time at the library, we need to think of interesting and interactive activities that will engage them.
