#teencafe

[affirmativeart]

Angela dreams of focusing more on her spiritual life - which includes sharing herself with her community and watching those close to her flourish and cherish their relationships. She hopes to accomplish her dream through Taos’ Teen Cafe project - a safe place for teens in the community, created and run by Taos teens.

[litmajorz]

[noisierandnoisier]

Meet the callimico of South America! Teens around the St. Louis area are invited to this month's Teen Science Cafe all about primates from SIUE researcher Jennifer Rehg. More info: http://teenscicafestl.org #stl #science #teencafe

[teencafepw-blog]

January 29: Polar Vortex

About 20 of our teens braved the cold to come hang out today... I made sure we had plenty of cocoa, but I wish I brought warm hats and gloves for them all too. ❄️❄️❄️

[teencafepw-blog]

January 24: Video Game Tourney

The high-schoolers had exams so some of them came early and had a video game marathon. Guitar Hero was loud and awesome - libraries aren’t always quiet and boring!

[teencafepw-blog]

Soooo... yeah, the schools and library are closed tomorrow.

[teencafepw-blog]

December 11: Mountain Day

[teencafepw-blog]

February 5: Back to Reality

We are back to our normal attendance today at Teen Cafe - no more finals or polar vortexes!

[teencafepw-blog]

February Bulletin Board

Behold my February bulletin board! It’s a combination of pink aesthetics, literary valentine puns, and quotations about love by influential black writers <3

[teencafepw-blog]

February Calendar

Happy Library Lovers’ Month!

[teencafepw-blog]

December 6: ACT Reading

ACT READING ESSENTIALS

Overview of the Reading Test:

40 questions in 35 minutes

4 passages (aim for under 9 minutes per passage)

          Social Studies, Natural Sciences, Humanities, Prose Fiction

One passage will be a “paired passage” with two shorter pieces of writing

Tips for doing well on the Reading test:

Practice reading constantly – it doesn’t matter what you read, just that you read often

Practice skimming (reading quickly) and scanning (finding a specific word/sentence on a page)

Do practice tests and work on your timing, get used to the types of questions

Learn “root words” (usually Latin/Greek) to help with vocabulary

Do the easiest questions (vocabulary, detail) first, and save the hardest (inference, main idea) for last

Use the process of elimination

If you run out of time – guess! Never leave an answer blank!

Types of Questions:

Detail

          Find specific facts/details

          Paraphrasing

          Vocabulary in context

Main Idea

          Main idea of whole passage

          Main idea of paragraph or section

Relationships between facts/ideas

          Comparison (ex: in a natural science passage, how does one scientist’s               idea compare to a different scientist’s idea?)

          Cause & effect (ex: how/why did one event cause another event?)

Making inferences

          Determining meaning or author’s intent that is implied or not directly stated           in the text

Author’s writing choices

          Voice, tone, method, and style (ex: why did the author choose to word this           in this way?)

[teencafepw-blog]

January Calendar

Happy New Year - Welcome Back!

[teencafepw-blog]

December 18: Holiday Celebration

All of the ARC YA novels the library got last year were still sitting in boxes, unused and unread, so I decided to turn them into holiday gifts for the teens. I made tags for each book that had a few key words about the plot, and then the staff helped me wrap each one. At our holiday party, the kiddos each picked a gift based on the tag - they were excited to get books and many of them started reading right away. We had a blast!

[teencafepw-blog]

December 4: ACT English

Since many of our teens are preparing for the upcoming ACT, here are some of my tips and tricks to study:

ACT ENGLISH ESSENTIALS

Overview of the English Test:

75 questions in 45 minutes

5 passages (aim for 9 minutes per passage)

There are two main categories of questions:

          Usage & Mechanics – “rules” of English (ex: punctuation, grammar)

          Rhetorical Skills – meaning/logic behind text (ex: organization, main idea)

Tips for doing well on the English test:

Memorize the grammar and usage rules

Read and write (anything!) every single day – practice makes perfect

Do practice tests and work on your timing, get used to the types of questions

Types of questions:

Usage and Mechanics

Grammar & Usage

          Subject-verb agreement & verb tense

          Pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, & prepositions

          Diction (word choice, commonly confused words, vocabulary, idioms)

Sentence Structure

          Sentence fragments & run-on sentences

          Parallelism

          Modifiers

Punctuation

          Periods, semicolons, and colons

          Commas

          Apostrophes

          Parentheses and dashes

Rhetorical Skills

Strategy

          Main idea

          Author’s intent

Organization

          Logical order of ideas and sentences

          Meaning - should a word/sentence be added or deleted?

          Transitions (contrasting, supporting, or cause/effect)

Style

          Word choice

          Avoiding redundancy (wordiness)

[teencafepw-blog]

November 15: Marvel Day

We continued paying homage to Stan Lee with some coloring today!

[teencafepw-blog]

November 8: Game Day

Behold our glorious selection of board games:

We had the board games and the video games out today!