Teen Passive Ideas- Summer Reading Round Two

Summer is sneaking up on us quickly. I basically went into panic mode and forced myself to plan and settle on ideas for Summer Reading this week.

I've mentioned this before that we have terrible teen program attendance, yes even in summer when we have over 100 teen volunteers visit us but very few stay for our programs. However we do have a great group of teen patrons who check out our books. ( I call them the "Invisible Ones") So having interactive passives on our display end caps is a good way to engage teens who might not be able or not want to come to our programs.

I wrote a post last year when out theme was Fizz Boom Read everything was loosely related science fiction. This year it is all about super heroes or with my twist...Super Villains!

We are having a "March Madness" style voting (all be it in summer) for our favorite super villains. There are four divisions- Comic. Disney, Movies, and Books.

Right now I'm totally stuck on Movies- I want to pick 4 villains the teens today know about but aren't from comic book movies or movies based on books. I'm hesitant to do just a match up of slasher horror villains. It's a work in progress.

For our other passives I'm rotating on a opinion poll and an interactive display every other week, Last years quizzes had their issue. Mostly I had little kids trying to fill them out and wanted to get a prize right then and there (which wasn't the point; it was an entry for a prize) Since teens have no seperate area and bump right into kids I get this issue alot.

Poll passives include would you rather questions such as...
Would you rather be a hero or a villain?
Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?
Would you rather write your own adventure story or live inside your favorite book?
Would you rather eat pancakes or waffles?


Display passives include:
Make your own comics, with blank comic strip pages
All About the Games: A Hunger Games Display (This came from CSLP maunnel) Check out the recently released posters The Heroes of Panem
Literary Heroes- A display about Classic literature
And this most excellent Adventure Time Scavenger hunt found at Bryce Don't Play!

If you have a suggestions for favorite villains, leave them in the comments!

Calamity Day Programing

Some of you are preparing out there for Snowmageddon 2015. Maybe you will have so much snow that your library will be closed for the day. In that case I wish you luck, safety and plenty of hot tea and long books to keep you company on your day off.

If not and you are facing a snow day for everyone else except the library, well take comfort. We are both in the same boat.

I'm going to reference back to my post about holiday break planning, because its basically the same thing. Kids are stuck inside and need something to do! It's Monday and I'm sure many parents not wanting to face a now 3 day weekend with their kids cooped up need some place to bring them. I had the weekend off and I still brought my kid to the library just to get us out of the house!

Schools have calamity day plans; so should you! Have some impromptu programs for your patrons on snow days. After a discussion in an email around our staff, we had someone in our department make up several folders with coloring sheets, activities, scavengers hunts, a simple craft and other passive materials to put out.  Maybe today is the day for life size puzzles or board games.

We had passives as well as a movie. If your collection of family movies is large, you're in luck. But if its popular and often checked out you might want to form your own "little library" of popular kids movies your co-workers can bring from home. I brought my Donald Duck binder full of Disney movies today ;)

I got to pick which one and at what time. (Wreck it Ralph) because everything was on the fly. I picked a point in the afternoon when we had a couple of families in the kids area and announced that I would be showing the movie soon and had a couple of kids show up. It gave their parents a much needed break. Also develop an emergency "snack bar". Jugs of punch don't expire quickly and popcorn and Twinkies last for an eternity.

If you made about themes here are a few I cam up with to match with a movie.

Wreck-it-Ralph- Building blocks and/or LEGO play, coloring sheets of video game characters, Pokemon scavenger hunt, Minecraft on the public computers
The Jungle Book- Animals masks
Happy Feet- Some sort of penguin craft (perfect for cold weather)
My Little Pony Movie -(Your Pick) -A Sensory Bin of Rainbow rice.

Stay warm out there fellow "liberrians."