PROGRAM: Fall Line-up--Zombie Prom

Halloween is my biggest library program of the fall.  As part of an October 'Zombiefest' including our Skype session with Jonathan Maberry, watching Warm Bodies and reading Rot & Ruin, our teen Halloween party this year was Zombie Prom.

Audience: Teens ages 12-18

Duration: An hour and a half (pre planning is a must! give yourself at least 2 hours for set up if you have help such as other staff members and teen volunteers)

Food: Pinterest was a huge help! Here's what we made:

• Witch hats & brooms (fudge stripe cookies, orange icing, Hershey kisses, pretzel sticks, mini Reese’s cups)
• Ghoul Punch
• Puking pumpkin & chips (ranch dip, ruffles, lil pumpkin carved)
• Graveyard pudding cups (pudding cups various flavors, oreo crumbs, ghost Peeps, candy pumpkin)
• Halloween Party Mix
• Apple nachos (apple slices drizzled with caramel sauce, mini chocolate chips and mini marshmallows)
• Oreo eyeballs (oreos, gel icing, gummy lifesavers, M&Ms)
• Spider pops (tootsie pop, pipe cleaner, googley eyes)
• Misc. candy + tiny treat bags

Activities: Teens were content to hang out, nibble on treats and socialize. We did have a number of other fun games:

• Halloween Scavenger Hunt
• Halloween Trivia
• Boo bean bag toss
• How to draw a zombie station w/ supplies
• Bingo

Music & Photo Booth: A co-worker's father is a DJ so we had a fun Halloween mix playing for atmosphere.  'Thriller' is always a favorite but I was surprised by the group's love of the 'Addams Family' theme.  We also had a photo op graveyard scene. Check out the pictures!

It was a super fun eveing.  In total we had 25 teens who dressed as zombies, anime heroes, Marie, Luigi and even Boba Fett!

#Halloween #teen #program #zombie #zombieprom #party #library

Summer Reading Program Ideas #2

Here's another crafty idea you might consider for the summer reading 'Unmask' theme!

Art/Crafts

An activity perfect for both teen boys and girls would be makeup tutorials.  Such a project could be something you undertake as a teen librarian.  You'll find a plethora of tutorials via searches on Pinterest and YouTube.

Take care to be prepared, if you go down this road you'll want to practice, practice, practice!  I'd suggest doing a bit of research, find 3-5 techniques you feel confident in replicating and teaching. Keep it simple so that the tutorials can be done in your scheduled time and you can purchase supplies within your budget.

This would also be a great opportunity for networking throughout the local community. Do you or one of your family members or co-workers know a makeup artist? Is there a theater nearby? If so, see if they might volunteer their time or work within your library budget.  When I did a similar program for Halloween, it turns out that two co-workers had previous experience. With their help we 'zombified' a whole group of teens!

Tutorials of this sort would work great if teens wanted to create superhero personas and costumes to go along with other summer reading events!



#makeup #tutorial #unmask #SummerReading #teen #librarylife #programs