Grimm Scavenger Hunt Part 2

Here's another peek at the scavenger hunt that the teens will be doing this Friday night.  As I scramble to pull everything together this week and double check my lists I keep reminding myself how much fun this will all be.  Whenever I plan a scavenger hunt I worry that it's not going to go smoothly or I've mixed up a group's clues, but every time it works out just fine.  It helps that I make several checklists as I prepare for an event like this.

I found some old, old cassette tape boxes that the library used to use to house the cassette tape collection.  This made me laugh because the teens will have no idea what these boxes were originally used for.  I thought it would be fun to have the first clue for each group to be presented in a book, so I made a fancy numbered cover and glued it to the cover.  Inside is a small compartment with the first clue rolled up.  Things like this just add a little fun to the game.

The yellow list is a Fairy Barter List.  Part of the game will be to find things in the library (mostly office supplies) that they can trade with the fairies for gold leaf money to purchase necessary items to complete the scavenger hunt.  This will also buy me and the other helpers sometime in between teams during challenges.

Here is what the inside of the case looks like with the clue.

Grimm Scavenger Hunt Part 1

Since I've been hosting lock-ins at the library I've included a scavenger hunt to help the time go by.  This year my Teen Advisory Board wanted to plan the scavenger hunt.  The theme is Grimm Fairy Tales.  I can't say too much yet since the lock-in is not until next weekend, but the basic gist of the game is:

Teens will be the bad guys from various fairy tales.  We branched out a bit from the Grimm tales so we could  have a few more characters involved.  The teens will be breaking out of the fairyland jail and must complete certain tasks to earn gold leaf money (pictured below) and obtain specific objects that will be needed in order to be freed. It's been fun to work with a couple of the teens on this scavenger hunt.  They are full of crazy ideas.  I think we've managed to make most of the ideas possible with a little fixing here and there. 

I will post more pictures from the different stations they will be visiting as I complete them.  

For now I'll leave the gold leaves as a teaser!

November's TAB Challenge

Parma's Teen Advisory Board liked my idea of monthly challenges for library teens to participate in for a chance to win a $5.00 gift certificate to out local coffee shop.  This month's challenge was taken from School Library Journal  Vol 35, No. 4.  It's called Photo Finish.  What I did was cut up a ton of random pictures from old magazines and put them in a box with instructions on the lid. Teens are told to take 3 pictures out of the box without looking.  They tape the pictures to a piece of paper and write a short 1-2 paragraph story using the pictures. TAB members will vote on a winning story at the beginning of Dec.  I can't wait to see what the teens come up with this month!

Fun Activity for Teens

A few weeks ago my Teen Advisory Board (TAB) started their own Twitter account.  The current officers are all extremely tech savvy so I let them branch out a bit on their own with me checking in on them every now and then.  Right now they are using the Twitter account TABYou'reIt to give hints about the them for our next library lock-in that they are planning.

I was flipping through my October issue of VOYA and saw an article about short activities for teens written by Rebecca C. Moore.  One is called Story in a Tweet.  Basically a teen has to write a complete story using only the 140 characters allowed in a single tweet.  BRILLIANT!!!  I posed this challenge to the library teens and told them that the TAB group would vote for their favorite story and the winner will get a $5 gift certificate to our local coffee shop (that is oh so conveniently located across the street from the library).  I can't wait to see what stories they will come up with.