Program Ideas: A WIP
This page is a work in Progress – taken from books and other librarians. Feel free to comment on a cool program you’ve had or you have an idea for…
Food
Crafts
Craft Pages
Informational
Author Visits
Contests
Movies
Parties
Gaming
Food:
Chocolate Making: melting chocolate chips into molds. chill and voila – tasty chocolates (add flavors and dyes in white chocolate for advance fun)
Chocolate Truffles: melt chocolate. paint the outsides on the molds, leaving the inside free. chill until hardened. Mix together 4 tbsp butter, 2.5 cups confectioners sugar, 1/4 cup light corn syrup – beat. add additional corn syrup by tablespoons and beat until mixture becomes smooth and can be shaped into a ball. Add flavoring as desired. Add the filling to the chocolate cover molds. Add chocolate to the top of the filling, sealing the chocolate together. Chill until hardened and pop out. Chocolates may be chilled in the freezer if needed.
Candy Sushi: OR Use rice crispies as the bottom, wrap fruit by the foot around the treat. Add in candies.
Chocolate Fondu: Melt chocolate and offer dipping snacks: pretzels, strawberries, cookies – really anything goes with chocolate
Smoothies/Milkshakes: Mix fruits, yogurt, ice cream to make either of these delicious treats. Let them experiment and also have recipes on hand.
Twinkie Cooking: Check out this book for awesome recipes
Pizza: Top off your pizza with amazing toppings (buy/make pizza dough beforehand) Let teens create their own personal pizzas.
Pizza dough recipe: (makes three regular sized pizzas) 6 cups flour (can use 2 wheat), 2.5 cups water, 1 package of yeast, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and any spices you’d like. Mix the flour together with 1 cup water, spices, and olive oil. In a separate container dissolve the year in 1.5 cups of warm water. When the yeast is dissolved, add it into the flour mixture. Mix. Kneed until smooth. Let rise for an hour. Kneed briefly again before rolling out. Enjoy!
Cupcake decorating: A. Let them go wild with sprinkles, frosting, cookie crumbles, candy, and writable icing.
B. Have someone come in a teach decorating
Cookie Decorating: (for special occasions/holidays) Make/Buy sugar cookies and include frosting/sprinkles/gel icing
Crafts
Jewelry Crafts:
Rings: buy rings decorate with fun paper and/or mini stickers
Bracelets:
Tape Roll Bracelets: Save tape rolls large enough to go around the wrist, decorate with Ribbons or Tissue Paper, glue/gloss with Mod Podge
Silver Cuff Bracelets: Take a used plastic bottle and cut off the top and bottom. Cut scissors to cut ~ 2 inch strip. Apply Aluminum metal tape (found in home improvement store’s plumbing dept) to bracelet -smoothing the wrinkles and decorate
Beaded Bracelets: A. Use dental floss to string beads – tie to wrist for a permanent bracelet
B. Use wire, crimp beads, and end pieces to create bracelet
Charm Bracelets: Use pin heads and beads to make up beaded dangles – mix with charms on a chain wire. use jump rings to attach charms and use the same method for creating earrings to attach the pin heads to the chain.
Necklaces:
Beaded necklace: A. Use dental floss – string beads and tie around neck
B. Use beading wire with ends and crimp beads – string beads on wire – finish with crimp bead and end piece
Washer Necklaces: Put two or more washers together through a jump ring. Loop the jump ring though a chain necklace.
Washer Jewelry: This anything I was thinking of, but it came up because of the above search and it just look fun.
Earrings:
Bottle Cap Earrings - save bottle caps, drill hole in cap, paint over the caps using a variety of colors, decorate with stickers, fun papers, or draw on them with sharpies. Use head pins and earring hooks to finish off product.
Beaded Earrings: create beaded pattern on a head pins and use earring hooks to finish off earrings
There’s great books on jewelry crafts – with Ribbon or Buttons even!
Clothing Crafts:
Collage Clothing: Take cloth bags, jeans, t-shirts and use stamps, fabric markers, and buttons to decorate.
If you have access to sewing machines, there’s a million projects just waiting in adult/teen books. Usually in these books there’s a few projects you can do without sewing machines as well – or that you can adapt.
Paper Crafts:
Card making: for holidays or birthdays – gets lots of stickers, decorative papers, and stamps. Add in other odds and ends like glitter, buttons, decorative scissors, and anything else fun.
Scrapbooking: Have teens bring in photos and create scrapbook pages with regular paper or paper bags. Provide fun papers, stickers, stamps, and embellishments
Faux Mosaics: cut squares of paper up and glue them together in a pattern or scene to make something unique.
Collage: take old magazines and mod podge pictures onto cardstock
Beauty Crafts:
Lip Gloss: melt Vaseline and add flavor (bought special or kool-aid works too) and pour into containers TIP: have plenty of microwaves as the melting takes a bit of time.
Vanilla Lip Gloss: a little more involved
Create your own Nail Polish Color: You have a read down a bit, but it looks fun.
Bath Salts: (Can also decorate bottle) Mix together 2 cups sea salt, 1 cup epsom salt, and 1 cup baking soda. In a small bowl mix together scented oil and 2 tbsp of glycerin and add in any dyes. Mix both parts together and put into fun containers or even plastic bags. This makes quite a bit, but you could just add a small amount of glycerin and scented oils if each teen wanted a unique flavor.
Oatmeal Facial: Grind up 1/2 cup of oatmeal. Add in 2 tbsp of Honey and 1/4 plain yogurt. Smooth over the face in circular motions and leave on for 15 minutes. Rinse off to a very smooth face. NOTE: this does leave oatmeal chunks on your face during the 15 minutes that can cause shyness and laughter. I just put the mask on too and it worked out well)
There are lots of great adult and teen books with spa recipes
Generic Crafts:
Duck Tape Roses: These are pretty and easy.
Duct Tape Crafts: a Whole bunch of different ideas here
Jewelry Boxes: Purchase paper boxes at a craft store and decorate with fun papers, paint, stickers, glue. If desired, use mod podge as glue and add beads to the top of the box.
Gocks: Goth sock puppets – take a black sock add yarn/pipe cleaners for hair, google eyes, safety pins for decorations
Snow-Globes: you can also glue or tape the jar at the end…
Photo frames: A. Mod Podge frame with tissue paper or magazine pages
B. Paint Frame with various colors/design
C. Mod Podge frame with beads
D. Hot Glue flowers, beads, buttons, or other decorations around frames
Candle Holders: mod Podge tissue paper around the holder (add small candle)
Candy Plant/A. Bouquet: use a variety of candy
B. Staple/glue candy together or thread together with needles and thread
Poetry Workshops: A. Display a bunch of art work/photos and have teens write a poem from the images
B. Make a list of words have have teens write a poem including two or more words
Art Workshops: Creating own character (Can be from a book – ex Lord of the Rings or from their imagination) Have teens draw their character and tell a little bit about them.
Painting with different ISMs – have teens do the same scene in multiple formats (impressionism, pointillism, cubism…)
Craft Pages
Yalsa’s Calendar listing of Program Ideas
Informational:
Take a look around your community and see who might be a good speaker. Also you can offer A/YA programs to make things easier
College Nights: Not to duplicate the schools, but college info night, financial aid nights, and SAT info nights might work
Job Training: how to fill out an application, how to dress for an interview, interview prep sessions
Or just fun ideas: Hand Writing Analysis, Tarot Card Reading, or Ghost Hunting
Author Visits:
Always fun – ask local authors to come in and chat with teens. If you can’t get an author to come, try looking into phone calls/video chats/IM chats. Here’s YALSA’s listing of authors by state. For a listing of authors who Skype for free, check out the article from SLJ which also gives you a detailed checklist for the event itself.
Contests:
These always seem to do well – offer up a smallish piece of candy.
Matching Game: A. sports stars/teams, celebrity couples or BFFs, songs/rock stars
B.First Lines in Books: match the lines with the books
C.Famous Quotes: match which celebrity/sports star/famous person said those words
D.Famous Grave Stones: Match person with stone (use in October)
Guessing Games: Guess how many candies are in the jar
MadLibs: with themes
Banned Book Game: guess why each title was banned/challenged
Movies:
(if you have a license) Watch the newest big releases and offer snacks
Parties:
Luau: Get some decorations and host a luau with fun music and games.
Oscar: Host a red carpet event, with oscar trivia, fancy finger foods, and voting on results
Murder Mystery Dinner: buy/ILL/a mystery kit or write your own mystery. Have teens be the detectives and look for clues around various crime scenes you’ve set up. Include a pizza dinner in the middle.
Pre-Prom Event: Invite a hair boutique to come in a demonstrate a few easy styles. Maybe add in someone from a nail salon as well. Other ideas might be making our own prom jewelry – earrings, necklaces, tiaras, or hair combs. If you offer a gift certificate for hair, nails, tanning, a popular dinning place, or a limo service that might bring in more girls.
Gaming:
Video Gaming Nights – try tournaments or beat our Resident (enter game here) expert
Computer Games: Zork: Old school game with no graphics – play it here or download the game
39 Clues: connect this game with the books
Game Show: host a game show based on something from TV: Library Survivor or Who Wants to be a Chocolatier
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