It is that time of year again, that time to start back to school.
For many students, this might mean starting middle school. Middle school of course brings a lot of anxiety. I wanted to create a program for my tweens to have an outlet to deal with their anxiety and to maybe meet others who are starting middle school too.
My hope was that this program would prepare my tweens on their new journey to their new school.
The Program
To make this program more exciting for my tweens, I branded the program with popular middle school books series.
My primary theme was:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Dork Diaries
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
With these themes, I had several stations.
1. Locker Blues
For our first station, we set out a lock for participants to try to open. We wanted participants to get an opportunity to try opening a lock. I thought this might be a safe environment where they could try it out. While in search for a good way to explain this to my tweens, I came across this wonderful website that provided a walk through on opening locker.
2. Locker Decorations
Once getting the locker open was successfully managed, I had various stations out for participants to decorate their locker. I got these ideas from various sources. Here is what I ended up using:
Marble Magnets - instead of just doing glitter, I set out old magazines and books for participants to glue onto their marble. This allowed them to personalize it even more.
Locker Pom Poms- I was so thankful I came across this craft. Our girl participants particularly liked this craft & I was thankful for its simplicity & affordability.
Perler Bead magnets- Oh, the magic of Perler beads! For our last option at this station, participants could make a perler bead magnet for their locker. We did not have any takers for this, but it was something extra that we were able to offer.
The locker was the main focal point for this program, but we also offered additional activities. Such as an opportunity for them to make their own journals.
One of the most popular stations was How to Fold Origami Yoda
This was the most popular station for my tween boys. One thing I was surprised about was that they had all read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but they had never heard of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. This station provided me an opportunity to book talk it. By the end of the program, all of this series was checked out!
Our other popular station was cupcake decorating
Sugar and tweens are always a hit!
An additional resource we used for this program was: Dork Diaries Event Kit
How it Went
This program wasn't as successful as I was hoping to be. One really odd thing happened that I was not expecting- I had all home schoolers! Many of the parents commented that their child didn't go to middle school, but wanted to experience some of the things that public school kids experienced. I was really surprised by this. I did not think this would have been of interest to them. If I repeat this program in the future, I may try to do a program just for these tweens. I think this is a need that I have overlooked.
What does your library do for homeschooling?
Until Next Time,
Pamela
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