Gaming

Gaming is a huge part of teen life and culture. Although some see it as a waste of time, gaming has redeeming qualities including building team work, problem solving, and reading comprehension. Give it a try in your library.

Gaming Crafts

Perfect for your crafty gamer, which is basically all of them. Here are a few basic crafts for you to try in your library.
Perler Beads -
Create 8 bit characters using plastic beads and an iron. Popular characters include Mario, Minecraft avatars, and Pokemon. 
Cubee Characters -
Cubee characters are made out of paper and use folding. These can be found on the internet or you can try to make your own. Page 71
Toy Magnets -
Take old toys like Legos, meeples, or Barbie shoes and make them into cool magnets.
Video Game Peg People -
Make some cute video game characters using little wooden pegs that you can find in a craft store or online.
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Coding

Your teens are probably already coding, but may not know it yet. Any world building games will have some element of coding. If you are brand new to coding, try out Hour of Code. They offer fun games to teach coding to all ages. Their coding games have original characters like Light Bot, but also feature popular characters like Angry Birds and Elsa from Frozen. Other ways to involve teens is to partner with a community business that specializes in coding. Hold classes for HTML, Java, and even photo editing.

Game Tournaments

Although not every library has the funds to own a gaming console, gaming tournaments draw huge crowds. Playing party style games allow many players at once. Mario Party and Super Smash Bros. are popular titles currently. Both are available on the Wii U system. Active games using a Xbox Kinect are also good options. The good news about this system is that it has gone down drastically in price. 

Find more information on page 68.

Board Games

Another great group activity is board games. Board games are a classic way to spend a day. You've probably heard of Scrabble and Monopoly and are asking how this is fun and new. Board games have gone far beyond these games. Here are some fun ones to check out.
Easy -
Snake Oil
Sell your wares to your opponents. It's similar to Apples to Apples.
King of Tokyo 
You're a monster. You want to smash things. Using dice.
Medium -
Gloom
Kill off your family before your opponents make them happy. Gross.
Small World 
Fantasy fun while fighting for the realm. Amazons, wizards, pixies... who knows who you'll be?
Advanced -
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Six explorers discover the secrets of a house that's haunted. And one of them set it all into motion...
​Settlers of Catan
​Settle, build, sell, back stab...

Find more information on pages 59 and 64.
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