Tween Book Club Adventures: in the graveyard

The tween book club voted in September to read a "scary --- but not too scary" book in October. I decided on the wonderful and award winning Neil Gaiman title THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK opens with the tragic story of a small toddler whose parents were murdered in their bed by a man named Jack. This child (later named Nobody or “Bod”) escapes from the murderer by climbing out of his crib, crawling out of his house, and into the neighborhood graveyard. The kind-hearted ghosts who reside in the graveyard shelter him from the murderer and take him into their “home”.


The initial frightening opening scene of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is soon replaced by a wonderfully tender cast of ghostly characters.   Some of the book club participants enjoyed the frightening beginning of the book and some thought it was a bit too gruesome. Everyone agreed that everything else after the murder was pure awesomeness.

While we were  noshing on pizza, a graduate library school student came in and book talked a list of middle grade  "scary --- but not too scary" reads.  She compiled a sort-of-scary readers advisory bookmark and handed them out to the kids.  Afterwords, we got down to the groups favorite part of book club -- crafting!

This month, we crated little graveyard terrariums.  I got this very cute idea from the Harper Collins book/craft Tumblr page.  This page has a few unbelievably clever and adorable book/craft pairings.

I ended the book club by passing out November’s book club pick.  The I SURVIVED series by Lauren Tarshis is "like, totally super cool" with the tweens right now.  We can't keep them on the shelf.  I highly suggest that you check out the Bryce Don't Play: Shark Week blog post for fun activities to go along with this title.

Community Helpers - a Humane Society school-age program

Last week, our local school district had their first early release day.  Our youth service staff usually tries to have an after school program available for the droves of bored kiddos that descend upon the library looking for entertainment. Games and crafts are usually set out for the kids in order to keep the out of trouble and out of staff's hair.

This month, I decided shake up the regular crafternoon program with a community service twist.  Our local Humane Society's Human Heroes program is for children under fourteen who would like to be involved in helping out the Humane Society but are too young to interact with the animals.  They developed a booklet with easy projects for young kids. The booklet guides kids in making easy beds, toys, and treat for the animals at the shelter.

We had about 18 kids in attendance for this program. I asked a representative from our local Humane Society to drop by and talk with the kids. She spent twenty minutes discussing shelter animals, answering the kids questions, and briefly talking about their youth Humane Heroes program. The kids had lots of wonderful questions and stories!

Before crafting, we read the book Dog vs. Cat by Chris Gall. This book is awesome! Reading this story started a whole new round of discussions about cat and dog antics.

Next, the children got started constructing cat toys for the cats and kittens at our locale animal shelter. The cat toys were made of a dowel rod, twine, felt, jingle bells and a jump ring.  Crafters cut two feathers out of the felt.  They attached the bell to the jump ring and then tied on the feathers with the twine. The other end of the twine was double knotted to the dowel rod for a handle.  This craft was very fun and most of the kids made more than one toy.

The Humane Society loved coming out to the library and offered to join us for another event.  This program was a hit with both parents and kids.  I will definitely be running this program again for our "Every Hero has a Story" themed 2015 summer reading program!

Tween Book Club Adventures: Lunch Lady Style

Last month, author Michael Fry visited our tween book club to discuss his novel Odd Squad: Bully Bait.  Kids and parents both enjoyed the experience.  For September’s tween book club pick I looked for a book that:

·        was related to the start of school year

·       reminded the kids about our wonderful author visit at the last book club meeting

·       was an easy read that tweens could get through painlessly while getting used to school/homework again

·        superheroes!

Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta is Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s third graphic novel in the popular Lunch Lady series. I highly recommend any of the Lunch Lady books.  In Author Visit Vendetta, a world famous writer with evil designs visits Hector, Terrence, and Dee’s school.   The lunch lady/superhero in disguise must get to the bottom of his sinister plans and save the school from attack bunnies.

The tween book club loved this month’s pick.  The tweens engaged in a extensive conversation about lunch lady’s super evil fighting gadgets such as spork phones, fishstick nunchucks and spatu-copters.  A few of the kids verbally designed their own elaborate kitchen utensil gadgets in super awesome detail.  The club also had a interesting discussion about what evil superpower they would give attack bunnies.

cyclops bunny

While we were talking and snacking on graham crackers, the club members made their own “attack bunnies”.  I borrowed this idea from DC Public Library's graphic novel club . Attack bunny shapes were cut out of felt using a peep template .  Craft supplies (sharpies, sequence, glitter, glue, etc.) were then set out on the tables and the kids went to town constructing their own diabolical attack peeps. 

We do have a young tween book club participant who does not like crafts.  For the kids who preferred an alternate activity, I set out Lunch Lady finish the story worksheets.

In the book, the lunch lady and students defeated the evil bunnies by throwing stinky socks at them. I devised a "stinky sock bomb game"  for the kids to play.   Evil bunnies were hand drawn on three sheets of construction paper.  Then they were cut out and attached  to three empty water bottles with superglue.  The kids took turn throwing rolled up socks (yes, they were clean and not "stinky") and knocking down the diabolical bunny bottles.



I ended the book club by passing out October’s book club pick.  We will be reading Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I showed this book trailer to get the kids excited about reading it:

LEGO Pictionary

Legos are the BIG thing this year.  Our library hosts monthly Lego free-build sessions after school that are always packed with excited builders.  This month, I decided to put a new spin on Lego programming: LEGO Pictionary!

Age Range: 8-12

Time range: About 45 minutes

Cost: Free (if your library has access to Legos)

Setup/Equipment: 5 tables with 4 seats per table; a whiteboard to keep score; folded paper squares with pictures/words; a bowl to put the papers in

The tweens choose their “team” by picking an empty seat at one on the tables. We then went over:

Da’ Rules

No running

No yelling

Only one builder per team/per turn

Everyone gets a turn to be the builder

The builder may not speak, spell, or pantomime the answer to guessers

The first team to guess what the builder is making out of Legos gets the point

To avoid arguments, I had the youngest in the group be the first builder.  I called the first builders up to the front of the room and had one child pick a folded square of paper out of a bowl.  The squares had pictures/words of the object the builder was to build:

The builders then ran back to the table and started on their assigned object.  Some of the objects were very easy and the kids guessed within two minutes.  I placed a limit of five minutes of building/guessing time.  

The kids had fun playing this game but it grew a bit complicated as late coming kids tried to jump in 15-20 minutes into the game. After 20 minutes, the game dissolved in Lego free play and the kids started making up their own rules/games.  Legos are such a popular and easy and flexible activity that never goes out of style. 

Mythbusters STEM Program

I <3 Mythbusters! Explosions, science, awesomeness…   So, I was uber thrilled to conduct a mythbusters program for tweens this summer. I actually borrowed (and then modified) this program idea from the Tween Scene.  The Tween Scene is an awesome resource for pre-planned tween programs that you can modify to meet your library’s needs. 

Age Range: 8-12

Time range: About 1 hour

Attendance: capped at 20 Mythbusters due to supply limitation

Cost: around $15-$20 in grocery supplies

Shopping List: cornstarch, glass bowls, large metal spoons, paper, lightweight books, tape, pencils, caffeine free cola, pop-rock candy

To start, I set up 5 tables with enough chairs to seat 4 kids per table.  The tweens choose their “team” by picking an empty seat at one on the tables. Next, I presented the tween teams with:

Da’ Rules - 

1. No running
2. No yelling 
3. Your team must agree on an answer – truth or myth – before conducting the experiment
4. You are not allowed to get help from parents or older sibling
5. Each team that guesses the right answer receives four raffle tickets (one for each tween) to the summer reading raffle prize drawing (water park tickets)

Myth #1: A substance can be both a liquid and solid at the same time

First, each team had to decide if this statement was truth or a myth. The team guesses were split down the middle. Half guessed this was a true statement and half guessed myth.  Next, each team received a bowl of Oobleck from our awesome teen volunteer.  The tweens "experimented” with the Oobeleck by squishing, bouncing, dripping, punching, etc… 

***WARNING***

This is VERY messy!  In retrospect, I should have saved this experiment for the end.  Luckily, I had disposable tablecloths covering all the tables.  I just rolled them up with the Oobleck and threw everything away after the kids were done experimenting.  FYI – Oobleck vacuums off carpet when it dries (thank goodness!).

Correct Answer?  Truth   
We showed the following Mythbusters video to explain the answer (while my brave volunteers and I cleaned up their colossal mess):

Myth #2: Paper can support a book

First, each team had to decided if this statement was truth or myth (only one team guessed myth).  Each team was then given one piece of paper, tape, and a stack of light weight books:

Correct answer? Truth – The teams could have folded paper accordion style or rolled it into a tube using the tape.  The youngest team completed the challenge very quickly.  I was impressed!  The participants then had a blast competing with each other to see whose structure could hold the most books (the record was 16). 


The teams watched the following YouTube video explaining the science behind their constructions:

Myth #3: Eating pop-rock candy and drinking coke will make your stomach explode

This was, by far, the favorite myth of the program!  Teams spent five minutes debating the truth of the myth while daring each other to try the combination first.  The following video explains the history behind this myth:

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/pop-rocks-minimyth.htm

The End

After sugaring the kids up….I passed out the SRP raffle tickets.  I directed the tween Mythbusters to a cart full of science experiment literature and book-talked a few of them.  This program was well worth the cleanup after.  I will defiantly be repeating this program again next year.  Possibly with a different set of myths?