We are passionate supporters of public libraries here at Pages Unbound. But there are still awesome services and programs I would love to see libraries provide! Here are ten cool ideas that would g…
A Book Tasting Event can give your students the opportunity to sample library books in a fun and festive environment!
Library Escape Rooms are really big right now, so I tried to design this program so that any library can try to duplicate it. Because making something like this is kinda daunting–where do yo…
Librarians: They're smarter than all of us.
School library events can help you make your library the center of your school. Read these five reasons for planning events for your school library.
Discover the magic of library fundraisers! Find out why they're crucial for our cherished libraries and how they bring communities together. Get inspired with creative ideas for fundraising!
There are resources for kids' book tastings, but what about the grown people? Here's a how-to for hosting a book tasting for adults at a public library.
Next week marks the start of National Library Week!
Haven't tried a book tasting with your students yet? This fun reading activity is an awesome way to introduce genres in your elementary classroom or library!
A Book Tasting Event can give your students the opportunity to sample library books in a fun and festive environment!
Whether it's solving the morning crossword puzzle, working out whodunit in a best-selling thriller, or participating in the library's mystery book club, everyone loves a mystery! In 'Hosting a Library Mystery', Elizabeth Karle capitalizes on our delight of the genre through this unique, interactive programming guide.
I think I love dystopian stories because I've always kinda wanted to be in a rebellion. I read the Giver along with everyone else in junior high, took a class on dystopias in college (where I was introduced to the lovely "Uglies" series), and latched onto The Hunger Games and Divergent when they got big. At our library we've done a few Hunger Games programs before (read my posts about the training here and the games here), but I wanted to do something a little more complicated. A little more in depth. Honestly, I wanted a rebellion. After a fair bit of brainstorming with our teen workers, we were able to come up with a format for a teen program that would capture the essence of the whole dystopian trend: basically, the oppressive government against the brave rebellion. We wanted to do this in a way that was fair, fun and (sneakily) educational. I think we accomplished all three! This event was broken into three phases. The first phase was sorting. One common practice in modern dystopian fiction is to sort the general population into classes/districts/factions. I always feel like this enhances the immersion of readers, mainly because you're left wondering "what group would I belong to?" I knew that this was something we definitely wanted to include in our program, so that night started out with the participants taking a quiz to find out what "sector" they would belong to. The quiz was just one I had found online and edited a bit to fit our purposes. We then "labeled" the participants with bracelets that said what sector they belonged to (pictured at the top of this post). The participants also got a list of dystopian books and highlighted the ones they had read. We counted them up and put the number on their bracelets, telling them it would determine their "rank" in whatever group they ended up in. This made sorting them into "rebels" and "government" easier for us because we could make sure the teams were evenly matched. We thought we might have trouble convincing the "government" group, but it turns out they were as excited to be the bad guys as the rebels were to be the rebellion! Phase two was the "battle planning" stage for both groups. Once we had them sorted to our satisfaction, I led the rebellion downstairs while my co-worker led the government group upstairs. We informed them that the battle would consist of three parts: the intelligence test (a quiz in dystopian knowledge), the physical test (a game of ninja, a current favorite of theirs), and then a debate (which we basically wanted to be a fun mudslinging campaign). I also told them they needed to think of a name, a slogan, and design a flag. The Rebellion decided that they were the "Elementals" and the government named themselves the "Capitol." Phase three was battle time! We started out with a game of trivia, using just little facts I had gotten from the internet. I tried to focus around the series that I thought they had read, but I totally missed the mark on some of them (apparently Matched wasn't that popular with this crowd!). They still had a lot of fun, and we ended up with a tied score. We then took them downstairs to a sort of fighting ring to play a few rounds of "ninja." I don't think I can explain in a way that does this game justice, so just take a look at this guide if it looks like something you'd like to try with your group. Again, there was no clear winner of this game. It was just a bunch of hilarious fun. The last part of the battle was the mudslinging campaign. We had encouraged the groups to think of silly little remarks to use against the other groups. We told them that the debate would be decided by the amount of laughs their comments got, rather than how mean they were. I have to say, some of the things these teens thought of made me laugh quite a bit. While they were debating both teams held up their flags to show some team spirit. They were great! In the end there was no clear winner, which they didn't seem to mind at all. As we herded everyone out the door, we kept hearing exclamations of "already!?" and "can we do it again?" That's when I knew that our event was a hit. If I did it again: I'd make a playlist for both areas. I know it's a small detail, but music is a big help in setting the atmosphere, as well as a being a big deal to teens. It's a subtle way to keep them in the loop. Find someone on the outside of the group? As them if there's a song they'd like to add to the list. I'd be prepared for more people! We thought that our event would have 15 kids, tops. We ended up with 40! I'm not complaining, but there were a few moments that were complete chaos. If I had known how many were going to show, I probably would have planted a few kids that had prior knowledge of what was going to happen, so they could steer the group in the right direction without us having to shout every few minutes. More time! Our event was 2 hours, which was 30 minutes longer than we had originally planned! I would give more time for planning, letting them really get into it. I felt like I had to cut them off short so we could get the games in at a reasonable time.
Now that our Minecraft Book Setting Contest is over (congrats Shaine B!), it's time to kick off another contest! With this contest, students will match the teacher to the bookcase. Forms are available at the display; please turn them in at the library desk when complete. The contest ends on Thurs. Feb. 19, and the winner will be announced on Mon. Feb. 23. The winner will receive a gift certificate for the upcoming spring book fair. Good luck!
What’s the point of Instagram and why should you spend your precious time and money on it? Well, don’t worry about the cost, because it’s FREE! So, all you really need is creativity and a few minu…
The Library Adventure uses affiliate links, see our policies for more information.Kids ages 8 to 12 are often too busy with scheduled activities of their own to make it to library programs in the afternoons or evenings. For librarians who wish to increase attendance at programs for this age group, this can be very frustrating, […]
So this is a summer program we’ve been hosting for 5 years now. I’ve always saved this one for the week of 4th of July–the idea being I don’t put too much work into this on…
**This post is an introduction to the ways TikTok can be used by libraries/librarians. In the coming weeks I will make subsequent posts about “How TikTok is Taking the Book World By Storm,…
A book carnival is the perfect way to engage your students and get them excited about reading. If you're looking for the perfect end of the year activity or a high-interest way to keep the learning going strong through the summer (helloooo summer school, credit recovery, summer reading, and everything else!), a book carnival could
Libraries can be some of the most visually stunning meccas of architecture, but even if you aren't fortunate enough to live near one of the most beautiful libraries in the world - your local libraries can still contain some pretty creative designs. The following list is a collection of photos from everyday libraries that have been spiced up with hilarious and creative twists from the funny librarians who run them.
January is kind of a quiet time at the library, so I thought it would be a great time for a contest! I had the Where's Waldo idea for a whil...
Amazing Race: Library Edition is a program that I’ve ran twice before. It always brings out a huge crowd – and for those of us who have a small budget – it’s a great program…
Teen librarian Karen Jensen also shares where she gets her tween and teen craft ideas for programming in part 2 of this discussion
