Tweens- After Hours

After another successful Summer Reading program, we had finally found a regular following of tweens.  Being in a small library, we only have one meeting room, so it can be difficult to schedule programs at a time that is convenient for everyone. Looking back on the concept of a teen lock-in, and how cool teens thought it was to be in the library after hours, I decided to venture into after hours programming with tweens.  We have done one Friday night program a month, and so far it has worked out really well. We ask that an adult remain in the building during the program, and I leave one circulation computer open if anyone wants to check out materials (I don't take fines or make new cards.)

Here's a running of what we have done so far:

September- Pancake Art
We set up several stations with griddles and colored pancake batter. Tweens then got to squeeze out the different colors onto the griddle to make a colorful pancake creation.

October- Halloween Fun
We did a scary story, made vampire pops and did some icky eats- boogers on a stick (green cheez wiz on a pretzel rod), & ghastly ghosts (bread cut out with a ghost cookie cutter with cream cheese).  Check out the cute vampire pops below.

November- Tie Dyeing and other Fabric Crafts
We set up a few colors of tie dyeing using the Family Fun Magazine method. It is so much easier to make a mix of fabric paint and water. No smells and easy to clean up! The tweens tie dyed shoe laces and cloth pencil cases. They also decorated picture frames and door hangers with fabric paint and other fun artsy supplies.

December- Popcorn Art This was one of the harder programs to prep for. We actually made the popcorn balls ahead of time because we didn't want the recipe to flop on us and we didn't know how long it would take to make them. We also prepared another project of making scarves for our Mitten Tree, so it worked out well that they didn't need alot of time to make their snowmen.

This is what they kind of looked like in the end (I got this pic from Family Fun.)  The tweens used Skittles for the eyes and buttons, and Twizzlers for the scarves.