Beach Party Drop-In

On Wednesday, 22 people stopped by during our Deach Party Drop-In!  We played Wii games, ate snacks, and made crafts.  The sand art and giant flip flops were really popular, and everyone liked decorating their own cupcakes (of course).  If you missed it, all of the crafts will be available on Saturday at the Random-A-Thon.  Look for more drop-in days on the spring teen schedule!

Brain Break 2011

Today, 27 teens stopped in for Brain Break!  Everyone indulged their child-like (childish?) sides with activities like cupcake decorating, making playdough, and constructing with Legos.  We borrowed my four-year-old's board games, and people got gum if they won a game of Candy Land, Hi Ho! Cherry-O, Chutes and Ladders, or Memory.  We played Just Dance for the first time at the library, and it was hilarious!  Later, we switched to Rock Band.  At the end, Laurel was the winner of a study and snack prize basket.

 We made our own playdough.

 A cute playdough snowman and dog

 Chutes and Ladders

  Legos

Yes, that is a playdough skull.  I said she was like Hamlet, and then Jamie proceeded to quote 15 lines of Hamlet's speech to the skull.  Who knew?! 

 A very nice playdough TARDIS (it had windows and everything, but you can't see them in the pic)

Brainiacs!

Just Dance!!!

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

Last Wednesday, 18 people stopped by for our Robot Drop-In Day!  Some stayed for the whole thing, while others just came by to check it out.  We watched Short Circuit and Wall-E, made robot keychains, build robots out of snack food, and identified robots in a quiz.  I totally forgot to do the robot dance contest, so we'll just have to do this theme again in the future!!

Our next drop-in day is Wednesday, December 22, for Craft Closet Cleanout. No registration is necessary, so just stop by.  Most of our fall crafts will be available (including leftover robot keychains from this event), plus a lot of other random stuff from the attic!

I love the mouth on this robot snack!

This one had eyes like a bug.

A cute robot snack

This was our most creative robot snack...he's roasting a fish over a fire!

Billy correctly identified 17 out of 20 robots and won this amazing pencil sharpener!

Completed robot keychains

1960s Drop In Day

Yesterday, 18 teens stopped by for our first drop-in day of the school year. The theme for this one was the 1960s. I didn't do much advertising, so I'm glad the word got out! We watched The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock's famous horror movie from 1963, and played Rock Band: The Beatles. The best part of the event was making tie-dyed stretchy book covers. They are perfect for back-to-school! Doing tie-dye definitely gave us the psychedelic feel of the 60s hippie movement even though the book covers are a modern invention. We snacked on food introduced in the 60s, including Doritos (1966), Lays (1965), Pop-Tarts (1964), and Tang (1966). Everyone was also entered to win a 60s gift basket as they arrived, which was ultimately won by Laurel. Congrats to her, and thanks to everyone who attended.

PS--Bring in your book covers if they turned out. I'd love to see them!

The gift basket had candy introduced in the 60s, some Woodstock memorabilia, an ex-library copy of the teen classic My Darling, My Hamburger from 1969, and an Archie comic book celebrating the decade.

Rubber banding the book covers gets a thumbs up! (Really, what doesn't!?)

A crowd trying to add color all at once.

A less busy time at the dye table.

Some completed book covers. They turned out amazingly well!

Candy Sushi Drop-In Day

A record 36 people stopped by last Wednesday to make candy sushi! I had directions for four different types of sushi, three of which were the same as we made last year. The fourth one was a gunkanmaki that we filled with Nerds candy to look like fish eggs! It was pretty realistic looking, and probably tasted better too. Everyone started out with a giant plate of junk food, and some even complained that it was too much unhealthy food all at once. However, by the time it was transformed into cute sushi, no one seemed to care. Almost everyone stuck around to eat their sushi with chopsticks and take turns playing the always-hilarious WarioWare: Smooth Moves. This year's after-school drop-in days were awesome, so look for more of them in the fall.

It was fun, but it took concentration

Chopsticks!

A completed plate of sushi

Look at all the junk food it takes to make fake sushi...

It's fun to play with your food!

Another completed plate of sushi

Bubble Gum Drop-In

Today, 21 people stopped by for the bubble gum drop-in program. Some people stayed for ten minutes, others lasted for the entire three hours, and everyone had fun! Lots of library regulars showed up, but there were also some new faces. Thanks to everyone who brought a friend! At the event, we made chewed gum sculptures, had a bubble-blowing contest, did gum trivia, ate snacks, and played Wii games. Winners of the trivia and bubble blowing contests got packs of gum, of course.

I finally found a used copy of Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for the library's Wii, so we took turns playing that for a long time. I mean, you have to do something while chewing all that gum, right!? The game is so random that even watching someone else play is entertaining, but it is so easy that even someone who has never played Wii can do it. We also played some Rock Band games, ending the event with our always-amazing rendition of Yellow Submarine.

To make our gum sculptures as artistic as possible, we used gumballs in a variety of colors in addition to bubble gum. Here are some creations:

A crazy 3-D monster by Justin. This used the most gum of any sculpture. The dripping saliva gave it an extra gross flair...

Jasmine's poor armless girl couldn't actually pick those flowers!

Yes, Laurel made a macabre skull.

Anas enshrined his love for soccer.

This is Jace from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, immortalized in gum by Kaitlyn!

"Birds fly over the rainbow, why, then, oh why can't I..." by Emily