I bet you are wondering, where is all the programming?
Working full time & going to grad school has prevented me from sharing this, but it doesn't mean I have stopped doing tween programming at my library!
In the last several months, Alyssa and I have done a Halloween Scooby Doo program, an Elf themed Christmas party, and most recently we did a fandom party for Valentines Day.
Out of all of these programs my favorite is a Zelda themed program.
The Zelda program was requested by our teen council. When it was relied to me that this program was requested, I become really excited. I am a HUGE Zelda fan, but I was stuck on how to make a game into a library program. I had to go back to the game to get ideas.
As I have mentioned in the past, stations seem to work best with our tweens. We stuck with this pattern and had several stations set up. Here is what we had:
Working full time & going to grad school has prevented me from sharing this, but it doesn't mean I have stopped doing tween programming at my library!
In the last several months, Alyssa and I have done a Halloween Scooby Doo program, an Elf themed Christmas party, and most recently we did a fandom party for Valentines Day.
Out of all of these programs my favorite is a Zelda themed program.
The Zelda program was requested by our teen council. When it was relied to me that this program was requested, I become really excited. I am a HUGE Zelda fan, but I was stuck on how to make a game into a library program. I had to go back to the game to get ideas.
As I have mentioned in the past, stations seem to work best with our tweens. We stuck with this pattern and had several stations set up. Here is what we had:
-Make your own paper masks- In the game, the character Link wears different masks for different powers. I printed out some masks for the kids to try to make.
Shooting Gallery- I originally planned to use a plastic bow and arrow to allow the kids to shoot a target a target on the white board. The day of the program, however, I discovered that the bow & arrow was broken. As I am learning to become a children's librarian, I think one of the most valuable skills is improvision. I quickly colored a target and had participants use a ping pong ball to try to hit the target. This worked a lot better!
Defend your favorite Zelda game, and put the games in order- for this station, I had the kids try to put the games in order of their release. From there, participants were supposed to vote on their favorite Zelda game.
Potion Shop- The week before I did this program, I helped Ms. Val with a Harry Potter program. One of the activities we did for her Harry Potter program was play the game Bean Boozled. The tweens went CRAZY over it. They wanted to play the game again. To help meet this request, I created a "potion shop" similar to the game. Participants could play the game Bean Boozled or they could choose a jelly bean at random from a Jelly Belly variety pack and guess what the flavor was. This station was the most popular.
Play Super Smash Brothers & Coloring
From the past, I know Wii games are successful in tween programming. I wanted to set out a Zelda game, but was unsuccessful at finding one in time for the program. To help supplement this, I set up Super Smash Bros Brawl. Even though this isn't an exclusive Zelda game, it does have the character Link in it! I set out coloring sheets at this station so the people waiting on playing this game would have something to do. This turned into more of a boy and girl station. I had 5 boys flock instantly to the Wii and 4 girls that just wanted to color. Even though this didn't go as planned, it worked out well. The girls especially enjoyed eating Jelly Bellys, coloring, and talking about Zelda. The boys...well, they enjoyed the time on the Wii!
Overall
This program flowed really well, and we did have a higher attendance for a winter program. The most successful stations were the coloring, Jelly Bellys, and the Wii game. I think the tweens most enjoyed just meeting other people who shared their interest.
What I learned
This program was a stretch. I had a lot of trouble coming up with activities.
The night before this program, the tween that requested this program came by the desk to talk to me. She expressed how much she appreciated that we did this program for her. My favorite comment from that conversation was that she said that she felt valued and that she was literally counting down the days until the program. Moments like these are so special to me.
This reminded me how important our teen council is. I hope to someday be able to do a tween coucil of my own. Does anyone do a tween council at their library?
This reminded me how important our teen council is. I hope to someday be able to do a tween coucil of my own. Does anyone do a tween council at their library?
If you are interested in the other programs that I mentioned, please let me know. I would be happy to talk about them with you. We are slowly preparing for summer reading tween programming.
What are you doing for tweens at your library?
-Pamela
-Pamela
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