Sunday, September 20, 2009

The end - almost

I just wanted to thank all of you for participating in the book club. It was quite an experience for me. I absolutely adore my new bookends too. They are so pretty I have not even set books between them yet. Just sort of lingering in the summer delight of it all.

I picked up the newspaper this morning and noted that the National Book Festival on the Mall is coming next week, Saturday, Sept 26th. I know that most of you will have your day filled with soccer games and other fall activities but I thought you might like to check it out if you can fit it in.

Some of the kids favorite writers will be there including
Kate DiCamillo, who wrote the Edward Tulane book, not to mention Mercy Watson, Because of Winn Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux.
Tony Diterlizzi of The Spiderwick Chronicles
Steve Kellogg who has written or illustrated nearly 90 childrens books. You probably have some in your home libraries.
Mo Willems, who worked 9 years on Sesame and wrote books like, Knuffle Bunny.
Even Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) and Judy Blume.
If the kids are a bit hesitant to meet their favorite author assure them that they love to here how much these kids like to read and want to know what they enjoy.

They will have adult authors there too.

The guide and times for the authors is in the Book World section in the Washington Post this Sunday.

Happy reading!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Meeting date

We will host the book club meeting on Tuesday at 7:30. We will introduce the Flat Stanley Adventure book - Mount Rushmore. Since we are introducing the book, I don't think the meeting will be long, probably just 30 minutes.

The following week will be our last book club meeting. We can keep it on Tuesday at 7:30 if that works for everyone. The book won't have to be finished of course but I figured it will be good to end it there as we get ready for school to start. At the last book meeting I thought we might have some simple snacks - cookie or something - to wrap everything up.

As you finish up Swiss Family Robinson, talk about what type of home would they choose to live in? What was your favorite invention? Did you have a favorite animal or animal encounter in the story? The Swiss Family Robinson movie is available to view on YouTube in short segments. They might enjoy watching it and comparing to the movie or if they did not enjoy the story see if their interest is peaked after watching the movie. Just a thought...

And as we are ending for the summer, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the book club. The kids were great and I think/hope they had fun. It was a great experience for me and it definitely exceeded my expectations. I was quite tempted to continue it into the fall but after looking at all the activities all of our kids do, I found it would be harder to get a time that would really work for all of us. With that said I really appreciate all of the participation from everyone not just the kids but the parent envolvement and support was tremendous. Thank you guys!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A bi week

I thought about who would be coming to book club this week.... It looked like only two kids and since we talked about all the parts of the book, Swiss Family Robinson last week. I think we will take a break this week from meeting.

Our next meeting will be next week and we will start talking about the Flat Stanley book.

Please don't start it yet. We will start reading it after we talk about it at the meeting.

If you have any nights that definitely don't work next week let, please let me know. We have will have a visitor for part of the week so I just am looking to juggling around that.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Swiss Family Robinson

We had the chance to introduce the book last week. Reading a children's version of the book makes a big big difference. My book has chapters that are quite short.

I read outloud to the kids and actually we almost finished the first chapter.

The things I asked the kids to look at were...

Tell me who is this family from the title.
What is their last name?
Where are they from?
As we read the first chapter, who is telling the story?
Who are the family members? How many people?

As the ship is wrecked, the family gathers things they would need from the ship. What would you need? What would you take?

Where do you think they landed? In Chapter two of my book it talkes about flamigos and penquins on the beach. What other animals do you think they might encounter?

I asked for them to read about 1/3 of the book to the part of the EXPLOSION! In my version that was chapter 8 about page 54.

The next meeting will be Thursday night at 7:30.
I will end that meeting having them think more about what inventions they will be reading about. What would they invent?

See you soon

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Date for next meeting

I confused my dates on the calendar.

The next meeting will be Thursday the 6th at 7:30. Sorry about that.
Quinn

Friday, July 31, 2009

A mini break

Since we had to head out of town we had a 'bi-week' this week.

I hope everyone is finishing or has finished the book - Ransom Note Blues. I think it was fun to work on the codes and see how they worked out the clues.

Our next book will be Swiss Family Robinson. It is a hearty read for us I think. I am trying to break it down into three weeks.

I want to finish the book club with a fun read just before we all head back to school. As I looked at the school activited and our family calendar I think we will stop book club for the school year. It will be too hard to work everyone's schedules together. But we can still encourage the reading throughout the year. The Rizzi's are thinking about ways to set up get togethers to do smaller reading activities, which sound great.

Our last and final book is Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures Series 1: The Mount Rushmore Calamity. It is a newer book to the series. I picked up ours at the bookstore but I am pretty sure I spotted a copy at the Mount Vernon Library too.

Due to a birthday party on Wednesday, August 4. I would like to suggest the next book club meeting next Thursday night at 7:30pm (August 6). Reminder, the kids only need to finish the Ransom Note Blues. We will discuss what to expect for the Swiss Family Robinson story and what the plan is for reading.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The ransom note

Today's mission if you choose to accept it...

An envelope will be delivered to the kid's house, hopefully today.
The envelope has a mission for them. The need to solve the code. Figure out who to send their message to. Decipher the question and figure out the answer.

This is what I have. I did not include the older kids in this mission but I think if you want to print out the coded questions they could try and solve them if they are reading the book.

Here are the kids who will be getting a note (along with their name code)
Sydney - HBWMVB
Annabelle - ZMMZYVOOV
Hannah - SZMMZS
Jessica - QVHHRXZ
Anna - ZMMZ
Megan - NVTZM (Megan just moved into the neighborhood and is going into 3rd)
Charlie - XSZIORV
Albert - ZOYVIG

questions
1. DSZG ZLOLI DLFOW GSV GSRVU 'GFIM GSV GLDM'? (Charlie)
What color would the thief 'turn the town'? Blue
2. NI. TIZMWKZ TZEV ZOVX DSZG YLLP GL IVZW OZHG HFNNVI? (Jessica)
Mr. Grandpa gave Alec what book to read last summer? The Bobbsey Twins
3. DSZG DZH GSV MZNV LV GSV NRHHRMT 'GSRMT'? (Anna)
What was the name of the missing 'thing'? Full Fathom FIve
4. DSZG DZH SRWWVM RM GSV IVZO KZRMGRMT? (Megan)
What was hidden in the real painting? Ghosted key
5. DSZG RH GSV MZNV LUGSV GLDM DSVIV GSV NBHGVIB GLLP KOZXV? (ALbert)
What is the name of the town where the mystery took place? Laurel Hollows
6. DSZG DSH GSV HKVVW ZOVX'H YIZRM DZH NOERMT?
What was the speed Alec's brain was moving? Peanut Butter
7. DSZG KZRMGRMT HGBOV WRW QZXPHLM KLOOZXP FHV? (Sydney)
What painting style did Jackson Pollack use? Layers of drips or abstract
8. DSL NZWV GSV ZIG HSLD KLHHRYOV? (Annabelle)
Who made the art show possible? Mrs. LaViolet

Barring that I did not transpose too many letters they should be able to figure out the code. I have already discovered one typo so hopefully the rest are not too bad.

Assignment - For next Wednesday please try and read at least to Chapter 9 if not all of it.
Next Wednesday is the final book club meeting for the month of July. We will on vacation the last week so we will start with Swiss Family Robinson the first week of August.