YA Board Wins SPA Council $1,000 Grant!

SPA Council offers mini-grants of up to $1,000 for community projects. Three young adult board members, Melissa, Danielle, and Wendy, worked with me to complete the grant application requesting $1,000. We won! This summer, the YA Board will purchase electronic gaming equipment that encourages physical activity, musical ability, and cognitive development.

Teen Displays

Lookee at my cute display to promote the YT collection. I set it across from the PCs to lure young patrons to the actual books!

I was rearranging the other day, and...
my CLM, Jeanette, and I decided that since folks don't use the reference almanacs and dictionaries much anymore, we should weed and interfile/circulate. Then, I was able to snag almanac stand for my YT display.
When we have book clubs during the summer (i.e., Twilight) I'll use the stand to promote that!

Also, I've attached a pic of a TTW-themed book trough display created by an artistic teen library page & moi:

For Teen Tech Week, our YAs participated in collection development, ordering over $350 in YA books from amazon.com for the library! The teens purchased titles of their choice. Nearly all of these books checked out within 5 days of being processed!

Metamorphosis: Artistic Transformations

This week, La Puente's nominee for Teen Volunteer of the Year, John K., made Project Runway (Or is it Project Metamorphosis?) work! He revived his favorite YA event, by acting as tailor for teens sewing iPod Cozies — and filmed his contribution for a high school graduation capstone.
A local artist helped with other art activities, including helping teens transform ordinary rocks into glittering lady bugs and dapper penguins.

Comments:
"This was unexpected! I thought I was going to work." - Maria C., 12th gr. (a volunteer)
"I really liked the beads project thing." - Alejandro D., 7th gr.
"Cool, nice, fun, nice stuff." - Josie R., 6th gr.
"Really fun!!! Loved trying new things." - Bianca B., 12th gr.
"I had so much fun doing this. It was entertaining." - Karen M., 12th gr.

Suggestions:
"I would like to read to the little kids." - Karen M., 12th gr.
"Break dance or skateboarding day." - Freddy G., 7th gr.

Native-American Arts for Young Adults

Today, young adults enjoyed a Native-American cultural experience
led by an Apache-Blackfoot, Rose Figueroa. Figueroa, who served as
Exhibition Specialist and Developer for the Southwest Museum of Native
American Art, instructed teens (and parents, who were itching for their
turn) in the native art of basket-weaving.
The pics feature the 16 teens that the event attracted (25
people participated, including the parents).
(Also included is a shot of simple Easter basket crafting after story
time.)

Teen Tech Week, Tuesday through Thursday

This week, we used the Young Adult Library Services
Association Teen Tech Week Grant monies to learn about collection
development in a hands-on manner, by spending $350 together on books for
the young adult collection from amazon.com. The remainder of the grant
funding was dedicated to gift cards --- every day that teens attended a
TTW program, they received one entry in the drawing for gift cards from
EB Games, Starbucks, Bath & Body Works, Jamba Juice, and Barnes & Noble.

On our opening day, Tuesday, teens participated in a digital photography
class, then uploaded pics to an online photography resource. Wednesday,
the young adults created a photo book online to be printed by
shutterfly.com for the library. YAs also shot pics of story time
families and helped the young participants create frames for their new
family photos with Flip-Flap Jack (see attached). Today, an information
literacy session was followed by an intense scavenger hunt, pizza,
online book-shopping, and gift bags containing frisbees and earbuds from
Teen Services. Tomorrow, teens will play video and board games, ably
assisted by gaming aficionado Josh I.

Comments:

Hands-On Digital Photography Class
"Loved it." - Sara G., 11th gr.
"I like it here, because you get to find out about cameras." - Guadalupe
R., 6th gr.

Story Time Photo Frames
"It's pretty awesome. I got to meet new people." - Joanne M., 8th gr.

Info Lit Class & Scavenger Hunt
"It's cool. Nice games. Learned lots of stuff." - Jose R., 6th gr.
"I loved it; it was fun and exciting!" - Kayla K., 10th gr.
"T'is was fun. Yayness!" - Elia V., 11th gr.

Suggestions for future programs:
All 5 requests were for fashion and painting programs!
* A big thank you to our sponsors, Dungeons & Dragons, Young Adult
Library Services Association, and The Friends of the Library!!!

Balloon Animal Class

This afternoon, library kids hosted a balloon animal-making workshop for their peers, with the help of teen volunteers. Next, we had a fun information literacy session followed by a scavenger hunt for books. The children worked in teams, and everyone earned a prize.

Story Time --- Jellyfish Craft

Teen volunteers assisted with a jellyfish art project at family story
time today!
Toddler story time featured a fun make-your-own-fish-bowl activity.