While planning for Summer Reading, one theme TAG kept mentioning was Percy Jackson. Based on their book descriptions I think I loosely remember reading The Lightning Thief but that was the extent of my knowledge and unfortunately for this program, I couldn't get anymore input as to what they wanted to do with Percy Jackson.

So of course, I scoured Pinterest for any inkling of a direction to take this. Maybe it was my word searches, but I was not finding anything age appropriate to confidently offer my teens! Thankfully, where all else fails, Teen Librarian Toolbox (Olympians Week) pulled through for me.

The Scavenger Hunt: Teens helped to pick out the objects that would be hidden around the library, but since this was a scavenger hunt for them, they wanted to be surprised and play along.

Originally they had expressed an interest in all three of the twists the Teen Librarian Toolbox had to suggest, but in the end, it was just your average scavenger hunt. Well, as average as I know how to make them- this one being my first ever!

I attempted to incorporate Percy Jackson trivia and library building structures and objects to base my clues on. For example, on top of the YA display bookcase we have a huge plant so that clue read "It's not Thalia's pine tree but look for this plant. On top of this shelf lies something very useful to Percy" and of course, 5 little Riptides were waiting to be grabbed.

These objects were nothing elaborate either. Riptide was thin foam covered in blue duct tape with a picture of the actual Riptide taped on and the trident was a blue plastic fork. The camp flags were felt and the report cards were printed off versions I found online.

At the start of the hunt, individuals were grouped into teams and given a scavenger hunt clue sheet and brown paper bag. In preparation, I had made various objects from the books that teams would have to collect to put into their bag. Each team would take 1 item and leave the rest for the other teams to find. As well as the hidden objects, there were the golden coins placed sporadically around the library that acted as extra points. Some of the things on the clue sheet were trivia questions though, just to add some variety and that was one thing the teens said they would have liked to have seen more of.

They were given 35-40 minutes to complete the hunt and had to be back in the Community Room at the designated time. Upon their return we had snacks and tallied up their points! Surprisingly, none of the teams found all the items... but whether that was because of my terrible clues or time.... well, let's face it- it was probably me. Read my clues and you'll see what I mean!

This was a program that went over very well though. Kudos for Teen Librarian Toolkit for having it available.

And here's what the clue sheet (my cheat sheet) looked like for all you people out there who may be stumped on this like I was!

Adapted for an 8 ft bulletin board... The castle was traced onto white poster board and covered with tissue paper for color. Other than that, I just used the cricut to cut out the snowflakes and letters.

Once Upon A Time has some truly FANTASTIC costumes - I mean, that goes without saying. There is so much detail put into these creative interpretations on classic Disney characters that I'm constantly amazed everytime I revisit the series. If you were to ask me to choose a favorite, I wouldn't be able to.


However, one costume that really stood out to me was Aurora's purple gown.

Maybe because it's more informally feminine than other characters, like say, Belle's gold dress. Another aspect that drew my attention was the frayed edges of the dress and how it just fit so well with the background of the enchanted forest.

Overall, it was tough deciding what costume I wanted to make first, but I was very anxious to explore Aurora's outfit further .

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This dress was made into 3 parts: a skirt, bodice and the corset. And because this was only my 2nd costume to ever make, if I was honest, I'd say that the hardest part was everything.

Typically I always start with the hardest piece first which (big surprise) is the corset. Fortunately, I had one on hand and was able to base the form of Aurora's on the one I already had, with a few minor adjustments. Anyway, this is what I came up with...

Corset originally used grey ribbon instead of strange mismatched purple/pink

Here's a look at the Divergent edition of Clue teens played at our most recent End Of The World/ Dystopian program.

The rooms on the game board were made from movie images found online and it was all slowly pieced together to follow the format of the original game. I printed off the grid over 4 sheets of regular blue paper, glued them to sheet of poster board and sized the rooms accordingly... much harder than it sounds (at least for me).

Once all the rooms were fitted and glued on I realized I'd forgotten character starting spaces.  Oops! That's why they stick out the way they do. The book quotes around the board are to help tie them in a bit.


The game pieces were folded to stand up and the weapon pieces are images glued on to the back of those glass beads. That was one of our crafts for the program - glass bead magnets. From left to right images on beads are belt, glass shards, butter knife, syringe, Eric's gun and lit coals.

Weapons

Since this was a Dystopian event, we also watched the just-released Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire and played a Hunger Games inspired game called Panem To Panem based on the game Apples To Apples (I found the idea on a teachers resource website). Snacks for this were Dauntless chocolate cupcakes, Nightlock blue berries, Simulation Serum (orange jello) and Abnegation pretzels.

And in case you were wondering... a bubble magnets craft was also set out with images from different books/movies and sorts. That's why the weapons for Divergent Clue are made with glass beads.