Life Size Clue: A Learning Experience

Assisting my predecessor with a few meetings of SPLAT, I had a light shine down and an ominous voice tell me that this was where I was supposed to be.  These teens were great!  I spent hours at home after my shift looking up program ideas, new books and other stuff for them.  I read every website, article, blog and Facebook post I could to learn more about working with teens.

I read an article on Facebook, one day, about measuring program success with teens.  I really wish I would have saved it so I could share the link with others, it was seriously that good.  The message I got from the article was that you shouldn't focus on how many teens are showing up but what those teens that do show up are getting from the program.

When SPLAT meets, I could have anywhere from 2-17 teens.  This last month, it has evened out to about 7-10 teens on average.  Like every librarian, I get so disheartened when I get only a handful of teens on a project I've worked so hard on.  It took that article to make me stop feeling sorry for myself in this equation and try to change what I was doing to be better for the teens.

How I Decided to Change Things

Step 1:  What  I noticed that many teens used SPLAT as a hangout.  My predecessor always had an activity or craft planned but mostly the teens just ate the snacks, talked, and played on their Chromebooks.  While I love that the library is a place they feel they can relax in, I wanted them to get more than Ramen out of these weekly meetings.  My goal was to find a way to get them engaged in the activities.

Step 2:  One of my biggest blessings in this job is that I work with people who do not get rid of anything!  I managed to find a large box of small prizes and tons of candy!  I also found 4 raffle containers and a box of Harry Potter decorations among other things.  We had all of this stuff sitting around for the teens, but we hardly used them before.  Now I had the prizes to use as an incentive.

Boxes to go through of stuff

"Waste not, Want not" is the motto here

Participation = Prizes!

Step 3: My first SPLAT as the Adult Services Librarian went pretty well.  I explained to them that whenever they participated in the planned activity/craft/whatnot they get to put their name on a slip to draw for either one prize or two pieces of candy.  If they wrote down a suggestion of material for the library to purchase they get another slip.  They nodded their heads and agreed.  I was still terrified they would hate the prizes and not participate or just ignore this effort all together.  It was time to leave it up to them.

What I Found

It worked!  For the past 5 weeks, everyone has at least tried the activity to earn a slip.  I have received 3 sheets of suggested materials for the library to provide for them.  Lately, I have even had some of the teens try to barter for more slips for the drawing.  So now if they help me set-up, clean up, or anything else they deem worthy, they ask for a slip.  

With this new reward system, I found them to be much more engaged in the program.  They are more willing to offer up suggestions on future programs or ways to improve programs they enjoy for the future. The teens are now breaking out of their little groups and interacting as a whole.  I know this may just be short lived as it has been just over a month of trying something new, but so far it's looking like a success in my eyes.

SPLAT This Week

I love games.  Video games, board games, card games: you name it!  The regulars who come to SPLAT are big fans of murder mystery games, especially Clue!  So I decided to try making a Life Size version (not my original idea, thanks Pinterest!) with a little understanding of the game and a whole lot of enthusiasm.  I bought special prizes for the winners since it was a competitive game.  Game Stop has blind box anime figures that were a huge hit!

I outlined the rooms from the game and tried to decorate them a little.  We had a program in the meeting room beforehand so I had a little over an hour to set everything up.  I then preceded to make a grid using the remaining space.  It took me 4 rolls of masking tape, 50 minutes, and a bit of exhaustion from crawling around but I managed to get it all set up.  I made weapons in cartoonish silhouettes out of cardboard and silver paint.  We used the game cards and a large foam die I had lying around to complete the pieces.

 

After everything was set up, I scanned the room and thought how cheesy this must look.  I was worried they had no idea what it was and wouldn't want to play.  But when my first teen walked in, she got all excited and asked if we were playing clue.  Each teen that walked in after had a similar reaction.  They decided to play in teams, and we argued about the rules the whole time.  Unfortunately, we had a few of our members that had to leave early so instead of finishing the game how it was intended everyone wrote down their predictions.  Since no one guessed correctly, we drew three names from the slips for the prizes and everyone else got a piece of candy.

The teens began to brainstorm ways to improve the game next time by outlining rules they want to add, making more durable weapons out of wood, and coming up with different ways to play using teams.  Just looking back on my SPLAT meeting yesterday, it really proved to me that my way of doing things is working.  The teens are attending SPLAT to socialize, have fun, participate in an activity that is building skills and working on developmental assets, and it's helping build relationships with this great group of kids.  I am beginning to see new faces each week and seeing results from my changes.