At this point, every kid has made slime. They probably have a ton of basic slime at home. If you’re going to throw a slime party for the masses, you need to make it special! Impress kids and shatter their expectations of the library by researching the trendiest slime, and making it happen. One easy… Read More How To Throw a Slime Party at the Library (and why you should!)
Ever had one of those programs where you get twice as many attendees as you were expecting and have to scramble to make it work? Yeah, they’re my favourite kind. It takes a lot of adrenaline and quick thinking to make it work, but hey! Look at that crowd of excited library users. Pizza Mania… Read More Tween Club: Pizza Mania! Pizza jewelry, Pizza Tasting, and Dessert Pizza
Another Tween Club hit! I ran this program as one of my weekly events for grades 5 – 8 and they loved it. It’s easy enough that anyone can create a cool looking piece of art in under an hour – even with no painting experience. The goals of this program were: attendees will build… Read More Stencil Art – Program Outline
If I had the time, I would LOVE to start a whole new blog devoted only to serving tweens in the library. Instead I will work towards presenting at a conference on the topic (!!!), and in the meantime I will continue writing about it here. Tween Club, for grades 5 – 8, is all… Read More Tween Club: Zombie Barbies
Let me tell you about my new favourite thing: Tween Club. I’ve been running a free weekly program for grades 5 – 8 for five weeks now. Some weeks it’s all glitter and paint and giggles. Some weeks it’s intense, ridiculous challenges. And other weeks it’s the Taste Test Challenge. I will post later about… Read More Tween Club: Taste Test Challenge
While planning summer programs, I became super excited about the idea of throwing an over-the-top adorable Teddy Bear Picnic. We have a beautiful big park and pond behind the library. I pictured doily bunting on stakes, hanging around plaid picnic blankets. “Toss the cupcake” lawn game. Cookies on faux china plates, and lemonade in tea… Read More An Indoor Teddy Bear Picnic
This program wins the award for most delightful smelling program I’ve ever done! But more importantly, it was a fun and valuable experience for 25 teens and tweens. I decided to open the workshop up to an extra 5 attendees at the last minute because there were so many kids who wanted to come! We… Read More Bath Bomb and Sugar Scrub Workshop – Program Outline
Creative writing in libraries is a no-brainer. I will always have a special fondness for creative writing programs: when I was a kid I would spend hours filling notebooks with my “novels,” and was encouraged to continue after winning a children’s creative writing contest put on by my local library. Now I have the opportunity… Read More Creative Writing for Tweens: 9 weeks of program outlines
https://youtu.be/LMXmQ-_6tMU Cool craft alert! Out of all the many many summer programs I’m running this year, the Galaxy Jars registration filled the fastest by far. I personally love the craft – it’s imaginative, beautiful, fun, and just the right amount of messy. When I brought my galaxy jar examples during my class visit blitz,… Read More Galaxy Jar Workshop in the Library – Program Outline
Class visits are an amazing opportunity for the library to set the tone for kids’ experience with us. I view my outreach trips as an extremely valuable chance to give high energy interactive presentations about why the library is so awesome! Generally my presentations happen in the school library to up to 3 grades, approximately… Read More Interactive School Outreach: aka Class Visit Magic
Ontarian Librarian 