What if you had literally no money to spend on teen programs? Let's brainstorm some free (or basically free) programs for teens!

"Ready for the Road"

Enlist the aid of a local mechanic or knowledgeable friend to teach the newly licenced how to check the oil, tire pressure, fluid levels and change a tire. A good outdoor program that was a hit when our library did it a few years back. The local tire store donated a tire guage and gave gift certificates for discounted oil changes to the kids that attended.

Collage Art

Use donated magazines, paper from the copier, and elmers glue to make collage poetry.

Use donated magazines, card stock from the supply cupboard, and elmers glue to make collage pendants. With a pushpin, punch a small hole in the bottom piece of cardstock to make room for a loop/tie. You can use the elmers glue to glue all the pieces together. Then gently (with fingertips) spread a thin layer of elmers over the top of the images.

Put out a call to staff to donate their old magazines, old greeting cards, thread, used ribbons and wrapping paper, yarn, sewing needles etc. for use with arts programs.

If staff donate uncomplete sets of playing cards (for the gaming item below), repurpose these into the basis for collage Artist Trading Cards.

http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/

Bottlecap Shrines

Put out a call for staff to donate soda pop (not alcoholic!) bottlecaps, caps from juice bottles, etc. Then use magazines and elmers glue to make mini shrines. Then have a swap!

http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/1485

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellomokona/943521963/

Pop Tab Crafts

Get everyone on staff to start collecting their pulltabs

Pop Tab Bracelets

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf97828815.tip.html

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pop-Tab-Bracelet

Pop Tab Belt

http://ohsocrafty.blogspot.com/2005/05/can-tab-belt.html

Pop Tab Choker

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf77001598.tip.html

Gaming

Put out a call for staff to donate (or loan) old board games. They may not be fancy, but it is a start to providing gaming programs at the library. Chess, Checkers, Go, packs of cards, anything!

Random Book Discussion

Instead of relying on every teen reading the same book, have a book discussion series where you have them read titles from one author, or everybody reads the same genre this month. Ex. Fantasy fiction. Each teen reads a fantasy book, they all give a short booktalk/sales pitch for their book, then you have a discussion about the common elements of what makes fantasy fiction.

Read a book together and comment online simultaneously at http://www.bookglutton.com/

Book Arts

Japanese stab binding can be done with pieces of paper from the copier, needle and thread, and old magazine pages or used wrapping paper.

http://www.sff.net/people/brook.west/bind/bindit.html

http://www.sdmart.org/pix/japanesebook.pdf

http://www.wfu.edu/art/art111/files/stabbinding.pdf

Flexagons - just use the copier if you can

http://oldhome.adelphi.edu/~StemkosL/mathematrix/flexagon.html

- this appears to be similar, but I call them paper kaleidoscopes http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/mathematics/paper_ring.html

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Star or Concertina books

http://lizplummer.com/blog/2005/12/20/how-to-make-a-concertina-book/

ReadyMechs - Basically if you can use the copier and card stock from the office. You can just print the black and white ones and have teens color them themselves.

http://www.readymech.com/

Writing:

Write a WeBook together

http://www.webook.com/