TPiB: Beneath the Surface Ideas for Tweens/Teens

Ah, February…  the time when every teen services specialist thinks of candy hearts, chocolate tastings, and OMG, we have HOW MANY DAYS UNTIL SUMMER?!?!??!  Do not fear!  We at Teen Librarian Toolbox have not one, not two, but EIGHT different ideas that would fit in with the 2013 Collaborate Summer Reading Program Theme (Beneath the Surface & Dig Into Reading)…

I happen to be in charge of everything (splitting the youth portion with my part time youth services librarian) and have had tremendous success with tween programs.  So for the summer I’m alternating between tween and teen nights.  However, any of these ideas can be aged up or down depending on your library, and what works for your patrons.  What works for me and mine may not work for you and yours.

Note:  All movie suggestions have been cleared through Movie Licensing USA, which is where my system gets their umbrella license.  If you do not have a public performance license, please use movies in the public domain.  Do not have the authorities pounding down your door.  Also, while the MPAA ratings are a guideline and not law, no movies suggested go above PG-13.

 

• Movie suggestions: DC Superheroes featuring Superman, Green Lantern, Batman– the first week of June Man of Steel is released in theaters so it would be a good tie in.  Marvel superheroes like The Avengers or Iron Man as Iron Man 3 will have been released in early May.

• Craft suggestions:  create your own superhero emblem and place in a photo keychain, or utilize the system’s buttonmaker (start preparing the arm muscles), or get mask blanks and let them design their own costume piece

• Game suggestions:  pin the cape on the superhero, name the secret identity, create your own superhero, get your own superhero name,  Marvel Monopoly

• Movie Suggestions: anything zombie related, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or I am Legend (World War Z is released June 20)

• Craft suggestions: create your own zombie heads with blank kickballs (hacky sacks for those of us who remember), or create a little felt zombie with some scraps and a house out of leftover candy tins.  Or check out Zombie Felties for a real craft project. 

• Game suggestions:   zombie marco polo, zombie fluxx, pin the brain on the zombie

  Adapt ideas from this It’s a Dead Man’s Party TPiB

• Movie Suggestions: The Lone Ranger comes out July 3, so you could pull in the western aspect with Wild Wild West, or go full force with S.W.A.T. or uber mysterious with Total Recall (2012)

• Craft suggestions:  rattlesnake pulls, ID badges, finger print cards, create your own wanted poster

• Game suggestions: Live Clue, mystery scavenger hunts, assassin

• Movie Suggestions: Really, what else is there but Jaws or the sequels? 

• Craft suggestions: baby food jars plus plastic sharks=shark globes, or make your own shark teeth necklaces, design a shark bite

• Game suggestions: shark bite tag, feed the shark (bean bag toss), shark volley

• Movie Suggestion:  Wreck-It Ralph. Yes, seriously.  Yes, they are both video games, but if you have ever seen Minecraft, they build and build and build, and then take it down and tear it apart and then build and build and build.

• Craft suggestions:  create your own Steve masks, fold your own Minecraft printables, build your own creepers

• Game suggestions: Live Minecraft (gather boxes to build the fort, have some tweens be builders, and some be creepers and destroyers- see who wins), Creeper Bowling, after hours Minecraft gameplay

•  Movie Suggestions:  Jurassic Park, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, Godzilla

• Craft Suggestions:  Create your own dinosaur fossils, dinosaur bones out of pasta, design your own dinosaur heads

• Game suggestions: bean bag toss with dinosaur eggs, hot dinosaur egg (hot potato), Lava tug-o-war between the herbivores and the carnivores

• Movie Suggestions: The Mummy, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Hotel Transylvania, Corpse Bride, Jumangi

• Craft Suggestions:  create your own mummies,  cardboard tube mummies, potato chip tube mummies, create your own tombs (Check out the hieroglyphics section on this Art Through the Ages TPiB)

• Game Suggestions: Musical chairs (Walk Like an Egyptian, King Tut, etc.), Mummy wrapping, hieroglyphics codes 

• Movie Suggestions:  Spy Kids, Inspector Gadget, James Bond movies or the Austin Powers series

• Craft Suggestions: recyclables to make their own gadgets, finger printing, disguise printables

• Game Suggestions: disguise relay races, spy training obstacle courses, hide and seek, assassin

  Adapt ideas from this CSI themed TPiB

Filed under: Collaborative Summer Reading Program, Dinosaurs, Law Enforcement, Minecraft, Mummies, Sharks, Spies, Summer Reading, Superheros, TPIB, Zombies