Monthly Archives: October 2020

Halloween at Home

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Stuck at home this Halloween? Make the most of it with these five fun activities you can do without leaving the house!

  1. Interactive Movies: Watch your favorite movie with a new twist. Come up with actions to do during key moments in the movie to turn movie night into a game. Need some ideas? Check out YALSA’s post on Interactive Movies for scripts and more.
  2. Ghost Hunt: Hide paper ghosts or other ghost props around your house and have the kids race to find them all! Search for free clipart to use on Pixabay or draw your own!
  3. Halloween Egg Hunt: Have the Easter Bunny help you out for this one! Hide candy and toy-filled plastic eggs around the house. Bonus craft: decorate your plastic eggs with puffy paint to turn them into pumpkins, ghosts, monsters, and more. Not crafty? There’s always these pumpkin eggs from Amazon.
  4. Scavenger Hunts & Escape Rooms: Feeling a bit more ambitious? Try your hand at making a custom Scavenger Hunt or go a step further with an Escape Room! Check out Escape Room puzzle ideas and downloadable kits at Lock, Paper, Scissors and Instructables.
  5. Minute to Win It: Play a series of challenging mini-games to win the title of Halloween Champion. Come up with your own games or do classic Halloween games like bobbing for apples. Need some ideas? Check out 30 Easy & Fun Minute-to-Win-It Games for Kids from Red Tricycle.

Happy Halloween!

-the DPL Staff

Reading Dragons

This entry was posted in DPL Blog Kids Teens on by
Reading dragon cards for the Skeleton, Glowshroom, and Calico dragons

This Fall, I’m excited to announce that the Reading Dragons are back with a new look and brand new games to play!

Earn a new dragon card for every 30 minutes of reading. You can get 4 different dragons each month. That is a total of 16 cards a month! One card for every box on the tracker.

Where did the dragon cards come from? How are there so many different kinds? The original line art was designed by Ms. Mallory of the Children’s Department. The unique colors and themes for each dragon are then created by library staff. Sometimes, these designs are even based on patron ideas!

So how do you get a Reading Dragon? You start with an egg, and then you read to make it grow! It will hatch into a baby, then grow to a teenager, and then finally become an adult dragon. Then, you can start all over again with a new egg!

And now, Ms. Mallory has developed two new games to play with your dragons! The more you read, the more dragons you collect, the more fun you can have playing.

Stop by the Children’s Department at the Library to pick up your Reading Dragon tracker, game instructions, and some special starter cards!

-Liz Strauss & Mallory Thompson

Update 12/27/2023

Please email Mallory at mthompson@doverlibrary.org for information on how to get started and access to our Google Drive!

Mini Sketchbook Project

This entry was posted in DPL Blog Teens on by

Calling all young artists in grades 6-12! This October, we’re throwing down a challenge: fill up a mini sketchbook with art and return it to the Library for inclusion in the Teen collection.

Sketchbooks are 4″ x 4″ and can be picked up at the Library while supplies last.

Guidelines:

  • Artwork must be original work.
  • While a prompt list is provided for inspiration, art is not required to follow the prompts.
  • Fanart or studies that copy famous art must give credit to the original artist or copyright holder.
  • Submissions featuring inappropriate artwork will not be added to the collection.
  • Sketchbooks must be approximately four inches by four inches.
  • Finally, sketchbooks will not be returned to the artists.

There is no deadline for submission, but any teen who turns in their sketchbook by November 1 will be entered to win a gift card. 

The Mini Sketchbook Project is inspired by Brooklyn Art Library’s Sketchbook Project, the largest collection of sketchbooks in the world. More information about the original project can be found at https://brooklynartlibrary.org/sketchbookproject. 

The original Sketchbook Project is amazing, and I’ve always wanted to participate, but it seems so daunting. I hope our Mini Sketchbook Project helps make the idea more accessible by providing mini sketchbooks, for free, to the young artists in our community. I can’t wait to see what the teens in our community come up with this fall!

The Mini Sketchbook Project is funded by a 21st Century Afterschool Learning Grant with Dover High School, which supports learning opportunities outside of classroom walls. This grant has also funded author visits, the Dover Public Library’s Mobile STEAM Lab, and the publication of Tornado Alley, the Teen Literary Magazine published every Spring. 

What are you waiting for? Get drawing!

–Liz Strauss, Teen/Outreach Services Manager