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Teen Lock In-Science Fiction and Fantasy

My library(ies) recently hosted a Lock In for teens ages 12-18. I love after hours things. If they had done stuff like this when I was a kid......anyway. I thought I would break it down and share it in case anyone is thinking about hosting a lock in and wants to see one that is themed Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Note: this was our 3rd LI, the other two were also crazy successful (we did Humans V Zombies, and Hunger Games).

Also note: The age range will be returning to the 13-18 year olds. Nuff said.

One more note: I am very lucky to have a ton of adult volunteers who come in and help, and this year some of my original members of Teen Book Club are 19 (!) so I brought them in as chaperones too. 

So, the basic schedule was as such:
6pm-7pm Food, games in room, and opening remarks (with two corny icebreakers)
In the room we had a post it note Tetris Wall, similar to this. It garnered what I would call...medium amount of attention. I do food right away because they come in hungry, they bond over pizza and soda, and because there just isn't time for it later on. There was also a make up station (after seeing some of the costumes, the costume-less started feeling left out, so they slapped on make up and went with it).

Icebreakers:  a paper plate on your head drawing. Inspired by this. I just made up a story about a rocket ship landing next to a castle....the winner got a gumball machine.

Next, I made them into three groups and we did a musical icebreaker. Group one: dum dum dum, Group two: NA na na, group 3: Whooo wee woo and conducted them (as best I could) into the Doctor Who theme song. Once they caught on to what I was doing, it went smoother. We have a ton of Doctor Who fans here.

7-8 Was retro gaming (an employee owns a ton of older systems and we hooked them up) and crafting.

One of the kids can twist balloon animals, so she spent this hour twisting swords.

From 8-9 we did a scavenger hunt throughout the library. We hid the clues in books, DVDs, video games, etc and even on some permanent structures in the library.We also changed the food over to desserts here so that searchers who finished could return and have cake and brownies.

From 9-10 We did Reader's Theater. This was my first experience with this. Due to time constraints on the kids, I felt I should provide them with skits. So, thus began the hardest part of the whole damn thing for me. I actually wrote the skits, packed up bags of props, and broke them into teams making older kids "directors" and some "prop wardens" because not everyone wanted to act. Then we filmed them. The scripts were: Minecraft miners meet Snow White, Star Trek themed, and Star Wars (performance reviews on the Death Star). I found the Minecraft pix axes here.

Starting at about 10 of 10 we began filming. It took A LOT longer than expected, but was all done by 10:30 when we called everyone back in to watch all three of the skits (and past videos of lock ins). By then parents were banging on the door.

Overall, I am most pleased when the kids tell me how much fun they had and hear my favorite words: "When is the next one?"

In August, my friends, and we are already working on the theme.

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