Tweens, Teens, and Andy Mason!

Another fun and busy week has come to a close! Monday evening, the tweens watched the movie "Sky High" while working on the first phase of their papier mache masks.

You could kind of tell who had experienced papier mache before and who hadn't.

You could also tell, after they had been drying for a day, who had listened to the instructions about wiping away excess, and who hadn't:)

But either way, they all seemed to have fun! Can't wait to see the finished products!

***

Thursday evening, the teens played five games of Minute to Win It, including

transferring marshmallows from one bowl to another using chopsticks,

and eating fruit by the foot without using your hands. We were just going to have one person per team try it, but everyone decided to try this one. One young lady who shall remain nameless slurped down three while her competition was still working on one. We were all rather impressed in a horrified sort of way.

Tossing goldfish from one cup to another.

My favorite, "cookie face" - getting a cookie (or cracker) from your forehead to your mouth, without using hands. I told the kids I wouldn't post anything too embarrassing, which pretty much ruled out all my close-ups.

***

Finally, Friday we had our perennial favorite, Andy Mason - a.k.a. The Pizza Guy (I wonder if he ever regrets writing that song?)

We started off sitting and listening,

or even reading (I love this kid),

but then we got to giggling,

and he got us up on our feet,

and pretty soon there was a dance party going on!

Sometimes adding our own little twists to the moves...

The kids kept inching closer, and by the end, I thought some were going to crawl up into his lap!

One young man even got to go up front and jam with him at the end, leaving with his very own harmonica.

Sway with me, sis!

Thanks again, Andy, for another great show!

Once again, NOBODY IS LOOKING AT ME! What is the deal, here, people?!

Summer Reading Day Two

Because Day One was absolutely too nuts to have time to post anything.

We registered about 60 more kids, bringing our total so far to 880, and we gave out over 900 prizes. Each prize is equivalent to one day of reading for at least thirty minutes, so it looks like everyone is starting their summer off right! Almost 100 kids earned their shirt on the very first day.

Of course, the first day of prizes and programs was a perfect time for our entire system to go down. No checking in or out, no looking up or reserving books, no cataloging or changing item status, no computer reservations. So, everyone just stayed in the library and read their books there. All day. That's awesome, but it made for no down time for any of us!

Smallish groups (around 30) at the story times:

that number will probably go way up as the summer goes on, and word gets out. We have six story times each week, lunch (provided through the schools) five days a week, plus Tweens on Mondays and Teens on Thursdays. The Tweens had a special visitor last night:

One of these things is not like the other...

He brought free pizza!

After descending on it like locusts (I think I see six slices left back there), they made superhero capes.

Looks like fun! And there was food! There is always food.

How is your summer going? Are you participating in your local SRP? Reading anything good? Going anywhere cool? Relaxing with the family? Leave a comment!

Tween Program - Christmas Decorations from Paper Towel Tubes

We hold our Tween (grades 4-7) program on the last Monday of each month during the school year, and weekly during the summer. Participation is higher when school is out, but there is still a fairly steady handful who will come out on a school night.

Mr. Cliff runs this program, with the assistance of his lovely significant other, and this week they tried one of those Pinterest crafts that I know I would completely mess up. There are a million tutorials out there, but this one is from Chasing Fireflies, one of the blogs I loosely follow:

Yeah, I envisioned a gluey, misshapened mess when I first saw that, and I didn't even try. Fortunately, middle schoolers are more coordinated than I am.

Such focus!

Huge thanks to all the staff members who have been dropping bags of toilet paper/paper towel tubes on Cliff's desk (you can stop now!). The finished products look fantastic!

I may actually have to try this at home after all!