Everyone in the library world knows that summer is a time for kicking back with some new reading, trying out some new programming, and (hopefully!) bringing in more people to your library! It’s a lot of work, but the results are fun for your patrons.

Thinking up these fun things to do can be the hardest part!

Fortunately, many library people face the same issue; so we can all work together to share ideas. One librarian asked for help in making teen craft programs over the summer, and there were many suggestions from other library people. See if any of them would work in your library!

• Some of the crafts I’ll be doing this summer are Popsicle Stick Architecture, string art (nails on a board wrapped in string), and book art (folding book pages to make words).
• We are also doing string art this summer, and my teens love what I call 8 Bit Art (it’s perler beads, but 8 Bit sounds cooler).  We also are doing Giant Games, Minute to Win It games, Nerf Capture the Flag, and an art workshop for our community art project.  Everything I do for teens is run by myself or a free presenter, I’ve never had luck in the past with paid presenters.
• I am going to have the kids make flower bombs and mason bee houses.
• My teens were surprisingly into terrariums, I’m not sure if you would count that as a craft. (there was a lot of discussion on the terrarium project!)
• Some other ideas could be an egg drop challenge: we’ve done this after school when we have lots of teens in the library and it’s gone over well. We have them, obviously, engineer the contraption to put around the egg and then staff drop it from a ten-foot ladder. I give out candy to teens who drop it without breaking their egg.
• I wonder if we could make a ‘garden home’ for a book character…has anyone done anything along those lines?
•  Chibitronic greeting cards or artwork! Chibitronics are tiny LED stickers that you power and connect to other Chibi’s using copper tape. They have a slight learning curve, we love using Chibitronics coz they’re part crafting, part STEM learning. Here’s a link to what they are: https://chibitronics.com/

Does anyone else have good ideas to suggest?? Share them in the comments!!