Mr. Lemoncello's Great Library Escape

This week we offered a scavenger hunt as one piece to our three-part series culminating in a Skype visit with Chris Grabenstein.  The best part?  We used Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Escape on Chris’s website and had to do very little prep for an awesome night of fun!

We ended up with 10 middle school kids who decided to break up into three groups to work together to solve the ten clues to figure out the ultimate answer sheet.  It was definitely an interesting group of kids – some we know really well, others were new to our programming, and a few who weren’t really sure they wanted to be there.  But, in the end, everyone got involved and had a lot of fun.

The clues first had to be figured out and then the kids went to the online catalog to figure out where to find the answer sheet to each clue.  This had the kids all around the children’s department from award winners to graphic novels and nonfiction.  Once all the answer sheets were collected, the kids then had to figure out the picture clues to fill in the missing words on the answer sheet.  Our program took just about an hour, with a lot of help from my co-worker and myself, but could easily be shortened or lengthened as needed.

My co-worker and I realized that the kids really needed a refresher course in using the online catalog and understanding how to find call numbers, especially in the nonfiction section.  They had a really difficult time understanding how to find a specific book once they had the call number.  I’m hoping to do some form of an extension activity or offer one-on-one sessions to teach kids how to effectively search our catalog and find books on the shelf.

Overall, the kids (even those reluctant ones) really got into the scavenger hunt, figuring out clues and looking for answers.  I’m excited for the next step which will be our book discussion followed by our Skype visit!