Young Adult selection

Program Ideas

Some of the following program ideas will work great in a public library setting, and others might be more suited to school library and/or classroom situations. Please modify these programs accordingly. Many of these programs can work well even for readers who DIDN'T like the selection! Let everyone know what works for you by leaving a message on the OBNJ Message Board

First Aid Kits:
Make First Aid kits for your home or to donate to the Red Cross.

• HGTV: Start at Home. http://www.hgtv.com/ah-personal-care-first-aid/building-a-first-aid-kit/index.html
• Ready America. http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/firstaidkit.html

Survivor Challenge:

• Birthday Party Ideas. http://www.teenpartyideas.com/html/survivor_party.html
  Where you'll find a variety of interactive survivor-type activities and challenges.
• "See YA Around." http://www.cplrmh.com/survivor.html
  An outline and suggestions for a library survivor trivia challenge can be found on Rosemary Honnold's programming website.

Create a Time Capsule:
This project can run for any length of time. Teens can create time capsules of their lives to be reopened in six months or a year, or teens can put together mementos representative of their generation and communities to be stored and saved for next year's class, or to be opened at some other designated point in the future. Teens can discuss the possible purpose of time capsules and what might have been stored from past generations.

• Essortment craft ideas. http://www.essortment.com/all/howtomakeati_rlsl.htm
• Literacy Assistance Center. http://www.lacnyc.org/resources/workshops/youth/timecapsule.htm
• "So You Want to Make a Time Capsule" from The Old Farmer's Almanac. http://gonewengland.about.com/library/blalmanac112999.htm
• Time Capsule Craft from About.com. http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/newyears/a/bltmcaps.htm

Bookmaking:

• Make books that can be used as diaries, journals, scrapbooks, or albums. Do an internet search for "bookmaking" and you'll come up with a lot of useful resources, or try one of these:
• Essortment craft ideas. http://www.essortment.com/hobbies/journalfuncraf_sdfj.htm
• Teesha Moore, artist. http://www.teeshamoore.com/how_to_make_journals.htm

Journaling:

• Meg Cabot's Journal Ideas. http://www.megcabot.com/diary/?page_idea=555 Bestselling author Meg Cabot and the American Library Association offer some journal-composing tips just for teens and the County of Los Angeles Public Library also offers some great related programming ideas.
• With Blogger, or another similar blog template, instruct teens on how to jazz up their online journals, or set up a schedule for teens to offer tutorials to younger kids or seniors. http://www.blogger.com
• This year's statewide summer theme is "Express Yourself!" Check the 2009 New Jersey Summer Reading website www.njsummerreading.org for some great programming ideas for expressing yourself through words and pictures, including journals and diaries!
• Simply provide a creative space for individual or collaborative free-writing!

Scrapbooking:

• Mashable suggests a variety of places to start putting together an online scrapbook. Reserve some computers for teens to work on creating an online scrapbook, or organize a group of teens to create one specifically to show off library programs and displays. http://mashable.com/2008/09/16/online-scrapbooking/

Emergency Preparedness Kits:
Find out what goes in emergency preparedness kids and how teens can put them together.

• Emergency Essentials at BePrepared.com. http://beprepared.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1227111180
• Emergency Preparedness Center. http://www.areyouprepared.com/
• Ready America. http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/index.html

What's next?

• Rewrite the ending! (A great idea for those special readers who just hate how it ends!)
• Write the first few chapters of the sequel to Life as We Knew It
• Host book discussions of the dead & the gone, and discuss the differences and similarities between the two portrayals of the same event.

Environmental Education:
Environmental Education Week 2009 is April 12-18, 2009. Discuss water conservation, global warming, pollution, and other issues that affect our environment. Then discuss with your teens ways that they can get involved on a local level to help protect the planet.

• National Environmental Education Foundation. http://eeweek.org/nature_centers.htm.
  Search your zip code and find a Nature Center in your area.

Blood Drive:
Organize a community blood drive, or learn how teens can contribute!

• American Red Cross Blood Services. http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d8aaecf214c576bf971e4cfe43181aa0/?vgnextoid=66061a53f1c37110VgnVCM1000003481a10aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default
• America's Blood Centers: My Blood, Your Blood. http://www.mybloodyourblood.org/hs_saving_organize.htm
• Charity Guide. http://www.charityguide.org/volunteer/fewhours/blood-drive.htm

Survival Scenarios:

• Invite a wilderness expert like "Wildman" Steve Brill to talk to your teens. "Wildman" is a naturalist, broadcaster, artist, author living in NY state: http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com; email: wildman@wildmanstevebrill.com
• Plan Your Escape! Create maps, budget supplies, and talk about the conditions of the Oregon Trail. This program could be developed around a real or imaginary "escape." Check out the read-alikes resources for some true story survival tales.
• Research plagues and other challenges to humanities.
• Create your own "Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook." Make up your own situations with pictures and words, and offer advice on how to make it though alive!

Astronomy Program: International Year of Astronomy
2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. Check out this website to see how people are celebrating around the world. Plus, you can access a variety of resources and you can see how you can get involved!

• Research meteor showers, the moon, catastrophic events.
• NASA for Educators. http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html.
• Contact NASA to organize a presentation for your teens. There are a number of resources to look into on the website for NASA for Educators.
• Briliant Astronomy Night! - The Otto Bruyns Public Library in Northfield, NJ has an ongoing program that is offered to everyone from children to teens, adults to seniors. Their Astronomy Program is usually offered two to three times during the year. People can actually view the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter, or see the ancient volcanoes on the Moon. The library’s newest high-tech astronomical tool makes all of this possible: 4-foot long Dobsonian telescopes are capable of gathering 400-600 times as much light as the human eye and can magnify objects 200-300 times. The library’s solar filters permit the telescopes to be used for safe daytime viewing of the Sun as well. Funds provided by the Friends of the Otto Bruyns Library and the Briliant Family. You can find out more about this program by contacting Meg Derascavage, Director of the Otto Bruyns Library, at 609-646-4476.

From librarians and teachers who have been there and done that, find more great programming ideas on Susan Beth Pfeffer's blog: http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/2008/10/program-ideas-for-life-as-we-knew-it.html.