Teen Read Week: Activity Ideas

Wednesday, 10/14/2009

Teen Read Week is nearly here! We’ve consulted the Yalsa website, and compiled some great ideas for activities to do throughout next week:

Host a Game Night – use board games, video games, computer games. Be Creative!

• Play board games: Risk, Life, Stratego or similar titles
• Host a Dungeons & Dragons tournament
• Play video games that have a book counterpart. For gaming systems, try Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Ultimate Spider-Man, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
• Use virtual worlds or simulation! Play The Sims, Age of Mythology, Civilization, or Virtual Villagers.
• Host an event in Teen Second Life! You can host an author visit, a competition, a college fair, or anything else. Hold a scavenger hunt or host a class (see the Eye4You Alliance’s Science Friday as an example).

Host a Movie Night or mini Film Festival

• Try a book vs. movie theme, with teens comparing them. Consider book/movies like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Potter, and books that have won awards or been on YALSA lists like Persepolis and Coraline. Be sure to have parents sign permission slips to approve PG-13 rated flicks first and to obtain a Public Performance License before showing any movies at the library.

Host a Fashion Show

• Teens create fashions for characters from their favorite sci-fi, fantasy, or alternate reality books such as Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Derek Landy’s Skulduggery Pleasant, Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (just to name a few) using whatever materials you have handy. Be creative – teens can design, draw, create three-dimensional mock-ups for sock puppets, or go whole hog and sew themselves a wearable masterpiece!

iPod Shuffle Poetry

• Teens bring iPods or mp3 players to the library, and select a favorite character from a favorite sci-fi, fantasy or alternate reality book. Teens then put their entire music catalog on shuffle, and “write” a poem about the character using only the first line of each song that appears on their playlists. The challenge and fun is arranging the random song lyrics into something that would truly describe the character and her experiences. 

Animation Party

• Using the free computer program Scratch, teens can create their own animations. Encourage teens to animate a section of their favorite book of 2009. If possible, invite someone who works in animation (check with an ad agency or see if a web designer could demonstrate Flashanimation) to talk to teens about what they do.

Also, don’t forget about the author webchats that Readergirlz is hosting.

We want to hear from you! What are you doing to promote Teen Read Week?

Posted by » walden
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