Lindy Liedl from the Rice Lake Public Library returns with her monthly column on all things virtual to help you connect with your teen patrons!
Since our in-person programming has reopened, we’ve been brainstorming ways to draw our teens who hang out virtually on Discord into the physical library space. Not just for the library’s sake, but also to show them that the space is available for them, and that they’re welcome to have fun in it. This involves constant reminders about the space. Teens are busy, especially during school, and they usually can’t just jump into a car and head over whenever they want. This challenge turned into starting a teen makerspace filled with things we know they enjoy
A lot of our teens are writers, so our makerspace has tables, paper, and we have computers available if they want to work on their projects somewhere other than home. For NaNoWriMo, we’ve included weekly writing prompts for the month, and advertised on our social media that they can have a prize for doing every week’s prompt. Our teens haven’t been very keen on the idea of meeting together as a regular writing group, so I’m hoping that these more passive programs will encourage their writing and make them feel celebrated.
Another thing we know our teens like in the virtual space is games! Our makerspace has a cart of tabletop games that can be accessed anytime. Giant UNO, Jenga, and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza are a few favorites. New game suggestions are always welcome too. Since they like building in Minecraft, a set of Lego will be added eventually, and we always have random activity sheets out on the tables to beat after-school boredom. Someone donated sticker-by-number and word search books.
To feed those creative teens, there’s endless makerspace possibilities! We’ve started with mini crochet kits, beginner embroidery tutorial sets, leftover program crafts, a button maker, and origami supplies. We’ve acquired a large chest of drawers to organize it all, and keep tricky items like embroidery needles at the desk.
Something we haven’t explored in our space yet is STEM activities, but I know other libraries are killing it in this area so there’s tons of ideas out there! We have a couple of teens who participate in a robotics competition though, so there’s definitely interest there. I’d also like to give 3-D puzzles a go.
There’s so many cool things we could provide. I’ll constantly be on the lookout for things to add to the space, and I need to start catapulting photos of it all into the social media atmosphere to get the word out…Until they’re sick of hearing about it! :)
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