Tween Disney Dance Program

......you may wish for more tween library programming ideas. When coming up with tween programming, I am blessed to work for a wonderful & supportive library. I even have a partner in crime who assists me in my tween shenanigans. Our most recent program is a Disney dance party. It was wildly successful & really simple. 

The Program

For this program our main activity was listening to Disney music. All we did was create a Youtube playlist similar to this one: 

We also took song requests from the kids, and played a few of our favorites

Since we knew that the kids wouldn't want to dance right away, we set up several stations around the room. The first station was to build your own Lego Castle

Next we had a coloring station. We had simple Disney coloring pages out for the kids to color. This station & the Lego station was the most successful for the tweens. 

It is after all that awkward age where you want to be old but still want to do things that you did when you were young. I think the kids enjoyed these stations as an outlet for for their creativity. 

Besides these stations, we also had a snowflake making station (inspired by Disney's Frozen) 

& Finally....

Our last station was a voting station to vote on your favorite princess, the worst villain, and the most handsome prince.  

Surprisingly, this event was successful for both boys and girls. The boys flocked to the Lego station & the girls wanted to color. After the program, the kids wanted to check out all of the Disney movies and books we had available. It was the perfect way to show off our collection and connect with our tweens. 

Reflection 

I was a little surprised by the success of this event. During this school year, we have a hard time getting tweens to come into the library. I was feeling really discouraged, and wasn't expecting more then a few to show up. I was really surprised to have a crowd! I think a big part of this was due to changing the program to a Friday night. (Normally, we have our programs on Mondays) By having it on the weekend, it gives kids a safe  place to go on the weekend. Plus, parents who are off work also have time to take their kids to activities such as this one. I am hoping this magic time might continue to work. 

What I Learned 

The success of a program isn't based on numbers. 

This program was successful in numbers, but it was only successful because of the other not so successful programs. 

Programming at the library is about building community and connecting with our patrons. 

My unsuccessful programs where I only had one or two kids show up, came to this program because I  took time to connect with them.  By showing interest in tween interests, it helps to open that door for a connection.  Sometimes the smaller programs are where you can spend the most time connecting with tweens & you can get more ideas for future programming. 

Besides connecting with the tweens, it was due to collaboration of staff that made this program what it is. 

It takes a team to achieve a dream. 

Tweens are a difficult group to serve. I am thankful I work with such wonderful coworkers. It allows for collaboration and free flowing ideas. This program is a product of this collaboration of my coworkers & shows the importance of connecting and working with other people. The success of any program requires team work. The library is no different. 

Being a librarian is a special job & I look forward to doing even more programming.