Sew Bookish Blog

Book & Cookie Club Special Event: (Not So) Happily After Hours

7/13/2018

Graphic created on PicMonkey. Silhouette Image from Pixabay.

Two years ago, we had a parent request for an after hours program for our Book and Cookie Club program. Since my library system has three locations, we thought this would be a fabulous opportunity for all three Book and Cookie Club groups to meet and share their love of all things literary and delicious!

It took some coordination and a lot of love AND contagious energy to make this after hours program a reality. All of the credit goes to my awesome co-worker, E. She is the heart and soul of this program and I am lucky and grateful that I get to play along!

Since this is becoming a much anticipated annual event, we wanted to have a consistent name for the program. Last year, we stamped the program with the name "Happily After Hours." Being a lover of puns and bad "dad jokes", I thought that Hapily After Hours would be a fantastic name for this event.

This year, we realized that we could have our awesome event on Friday, the 13th! After we secured the date, the spooky and mysterious possibilities were endless!

The Cake Caper

We wanted to have an icebreaker activity for our participants, so I started brainstorming a fun and interactive mystery activity - The Cake Caper!

The activity was introduced using a video I created on Adobe Spark.

Hello. My name is Detective Harper Watson of the DMD. I am contacting you to inform you that a terrible tragedy has occurred. At 20 hundred hours, the tasty cake that Emily, Deanna, Ale, and Nicole brought in for dessert was stolen! I am calling on you to assist the Department of Missing Desserts in this case by collecting clues and completing assignments. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to find the cake before it is too late!
This message will self-destruct in 3 seconds.

Participants were divided into groups, assigned a color, and given their case files. I hid color coded clues and clue cards around the room for each team prior to the start of the event. Each group was responsible for locating their clue cards and solving the challenges. The group that completed all of their challenges was the first group to get cake (individually wrapped Zebra cakes).

To see the instructions and "team missions" for The Cake Caper - click here

After the Cake Caper, we had various stations that participants cycled through. Some of the super fun activities that we had were - BookFace, mini golf, Fear Factor, coloring, and games. Everyone had an absolute blast.

I cannot wait until next year's Happily After Hours!

0 Comments

June Book and Cookie Club: Castle in the Attic

6/27/2018

0 Comments

Every month I facilitate a book club for students in 3rd - 5th grade. This program is designed to be a caregiver and child book discussion group. I plan activities and games based on the book that we read. B&C Club is one of my favorite programs and I love the challenge of creating new activities and games each month for The Crew (my nickname for my B&C Club participants) to enjoy.

My plan for this month's B&C Club can be accessed by clicking here.

Our book for this month was The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop.

What's Your Medieval Name? -- Nametag Activity

medieval_name.jpg
File Size:	1590 kb
File Type:	jpg

Download File

I decided that it would be great fun for The Crew to create their own Medieval Name for the evening.

I made this Medieval Name generator graphic using PicMonkey and found some name inspiration on Storm the Castle. As I was creating this graphic, I realized that I only had so much space to work with so I opted for gender neutral names. I also picked out some Jousting horse names for some of the surnames because I found it amusing.

British Word Matching Game -- Icebreaker Activity

british_slang_memory_match.pdf
File Size:	604 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

I purchased the clipart for this collage from the amazing Krista Wallden of Creative Clips.

I thought it would be fun to have The Crew match British terms and slang to pictures that I mounted on foam core. This was such a fun icebreaker because it got everyone to work together!

Race to Build a Castle -- Discussion Game

The Crew was divided into two teams for this game. Each team took turns answering questions from the book. If they answered the question correctly, they were given the card the question was written on and used the card as a "block" to build their castle. To win the game, a team had to earn 20 blocks and have a castle that had 2 towers. It was a close race, but Unicorn Castle was victorious!

Stained Glass Art

This was one of the most popular activities of the evening. For this activity, The Crew drew a design on glossy photo paper with Sharpie markers. When they were finished drawing and coloring their design, they outlined the shapes of their design with a black marker. I actually had this photo paper lying around my house, so I didn't have to buy any #score! The idea for this activity came from Happy Hooligans blog.

Castle Challenges

This is a really cool STEM and team building activity that I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. I plan on trotting this activity out again during the school year for our Makerspace. The supplies are super simple and cheap - a ruler and index cards. I added cups for an additional challenge.

Magic Tricks

I pulled some magic books from our nonfiction section and marked the easiest tricks (and the ones I had the supplies for) with a post-it note. Some of the members of The Crew were excited to try out the tricks they learned on their friends and siblings.

Book Display

We are trying to promote our awesome nonfiction books via display carts for special programs. Our nonfiction section is tucked away in the very back corner of our department, so the books back there can get a bit neglected. I thought it would be fun to pull some books that related to various themes and topics in Castle in the Attic. I pulled books on castles, knights, jokes, and riddles.

Biscuits

Reading this book made me nostalgic for the time that I studied abroad in England (back in 2009). I had the opportunity to student teach in an English primary school. The best part of the day was tea time. All of the kids would go out to recess where they were supervised by parent volunteers. All of the teachers would head into the lounge for tea, biscuits, and cakes. I'm food oriented, so it's safe to say that this was my favorite part of the day.

I decided to order my favorite biscuit for The Crew to try. Unfortunately, Amazon was out of stock on the chocolate covered Digestives so I had to get the plain ones. I'm not complaining though, I get to enjoy some biscuits with my tea.

Summer Swag Bags

I might have kept one (or three) of the Squishies. Isn't it CUTE?

Last summer I thought it would be fun to give out little "swag" bags with activities and items related to the next book that we would be reading in Book & Cookie Club. I decided to bring them back again this summer because they were a lot of fun to put together!

This month's Swag Bag included Squishies (which were difficult to part with because they are tiny, cute, squishy animals), a "box of normal" (a Darice mini clear box with lock tabs purchased at my local Meijer for $1), Ticonderoga pencils (purchased at my local Meijer),Darice holographic star stickers, deco-trope craft with bamboo skewer, and I'm a Balloon! bookmark activity with string.

I have included the PDF to the activity templates and descriptions for the June Swag Bag.

june_bags.pdf
File Size:	201 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

0 Comments

May Book & Cookie Club: Fake Mustache

5/30/2018

0 Comments

Book and Cookie Club is a monthly book discussion that I facilitate. It is geared toward students in 3rd - 5th grade and an adult caregiver. Each month I select a book, we read it, and then we get together to nosh on some delicious cookies while we have Maximum Fun!

Our book for this month was Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger.

My Devious Plan

I have been desperate to create an escape room and use it in one of my programs. I think escape rooms are incredibly fun and I love how they encourage everyone to work together. I thought that Fake Mustache would be the perfect book to use as inspiration for my very first escape room.

Escape Room Noob

Research

I highly recommend doing as much research as you can before you start the process of creating an escape room from scratch.

Here are the websites & blogs that I referenced when I was creating the escape room:
The Logic Escapes Me
Now Escape
Lock Paper Scissors
Weekend Notes
Instructables
Fundraising Mums

Recommendations

These are the four major things that I wish I would have done a little bit better when I was planning and executing this escape room.

Time: give yourself time to plan your escape room
Think: consider how you will set-up the room & where the clues will go
Test: have a group of people test out your escape room so that you can work out the little kinks
Try: make sure you know how to open the locks (I struggs to open and close that durn rope lock. Yikes!)

Supplies

Computer*
Projector*
BlueTooth speaker*
Boggle*
Lewo Tumbling Tower*
Interoffice envelope*
10 cardstock mustaches (laminated w/ paper clips attached)*
2 hands (laminated with magnets on the back & yarn attached)*
Does It Fart? by Nick Caruso & Dana Rabaiotti*
Slime (I made it from scratch)*
Nose tissue box holder*
Orange crepe streamers
Extendable cord lock
Number/letter lock
Mario tin with ? mark*
- Candy (Jolly Ranchers & Life Savers)
- Sticky hands
Whoopee cushion
Pictures of book characters with mustaches*

Some of the items for the escape room were things that I already owned. I'm going to be 100% honest with you, I am in grad school, I work part time, and I'm married to a teacher. We're not swimming in cash so I definitely designed the clues around things that I had lying around my house. Anything marked with a "*" is something that I either own or was provided by my library.

The whoopee cushion was my timekeeper I let 'er rip to let everyone know that they had 15 and 10 minutes left.

Room Set-Up

Book and Cookie Club is hosted in our children's program room. We have a lot of cabinets where we store our programming supplies. I decided to utilize two of the cabinets for the escape room. I also thought it was important to mark off the things that were NOT part of the escape room. I used orange crepe streamers to block off the areas that weren't part of the escape room to provide a visual reminder in case participants fogot which areas were not part of the game.

There was also the added challenge of everyone being in the room before we began the escape room. I covered up the clues for the escape room with blue table cloths and made sure I had a fun icebreaker activity (mazes) for everyone to do at their seats as we waited for everyone to arrive.

The Story & The 1st Clue

Every escape room has to have a story! I usediFakeText Message and Screen Cast O'Matic to create a text conversation between myself and Fako Mustacho (the evil villain). The B&C Crew watched the video and began the search for their candy!

The hint is located in the the text messages of the video.

Find a lock with numbers
Combination is 4-2-2.

Clue #2: URGENT!

Once participants unlocked the cabinet, there was an interoffice envelope with a yellow note marked “URGENT!!!”

There are hints hidden inside of the memo that led the team to the next major clue: word, blue, hairy, and evil (the boggle game)

There is also a secret clue on the logo of the memo: HNBC (that came in handy later)

Clue #3: EVIL HAIR!

I hid a yellow piece of paper that was slightly poking out from under Boggle.

The yellow piece of paper had a poem that led The Crew to the next clue.

"Finding candy is your wish, use your hands to go and fish. To locate the candy stash - you must catch a mustache!”

The hints in the poem are the words "hands" and "mustache".

Clue #4 -- Catch That 'Stache

Participants used the magnetic hands to pick up all of the mustaches. Each mustache had a number written on the back.

The numbers represented a letter. One of the magnetic hands had a number/letter key that participants used to break the code.

This is the code:
U = 1
12 18 7 26 1 18 11 20 9 11
Answer to the code is: Flatulence

Clue #5-- Does it Fart?

I had a stack of books on a table with the spines facing out. Participants had to find the book Does It Fart? to locate the next clue.

I placed a bookmark on the horse page of Does It Fart that would lead participants to the next clue.

Clue #6 -- The Tower

I taped a picture of a nose on four of the Lewo blocks. I hid them inside of the tower. The kids decided the best strategy was to knock down the tower to find the next clue!

Clue #7 -- It's SNOT funny

I made slime and placed it inside of this amazing tissue box cover that belongs to MLaw (my awesome husband). I hid the next clue inside of the slime/snot. The kids had to stick their hand in the box and pull the clue out of the slime. Squealing noises were made (MWA-HA-HA!)

The clue inside of the slime/snot was a laminated piece of paper that said "I am as pretty as a picture."

Clue #8 -- Picture Perfect

There's nothing funnier than putting mustaches on book characters. I'm not going to lie, putting mustaches on The Berenstain Bears had me giggling uncontrollably.

The characters pictured here are: Harry Potter, Nancy Drew, Berenstain Bears, and Clifford (HNBC).

The Crew really thought long and hard on this one. They came up with some ideas that I hadn't thought of (like counting the number of mustaches on the characters). Ultimately, they figured out that the first letter of each character's name was the first part of the lock combination and then they realized that there were four pictures on the wall, which was the last part of the lock combination.

So, the lock combination was HNBC4.

THEY DID IT!

The Crew solved the escape room in 22 minutes. Each of the kids recieved a cello treat bag for their candy stash and sticky hand. I considered getting mini whoopee cushions, but I decided the sticky hands and sugared up children would be enough of a punishment to the parents in attendance (Sorry! #notsorry #theyhadfun)

Mustache Photo Booth

I created a photo booth and printed off some mustache photo booth props. The kids and parents had a blast taking photos!

I took some photos of my own after Book and Cookie Club was over to celebrate the success of my first escape room!

0 Comments

March Book & Cookie Club: What We Found in the Sofa (and How it Saved the World)

3/28/2018

0 Comments

Book and Cookie Club is a book discussion group that I have been facilitating for a little over two years. I love this program because it gets particpants in third through fifth grade to have some fun with an adult caregiver.

This month's Book and Cookie was really special for me because I had some special guests in attendance. My parents and husband stopped in for the Book and Cookie festivities. My parents were visiting from Texas for the Easter Holiday.

THE BOOK

This month, we read and discussed the book What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World by Henry Clark. A mysterious sofa, a rare zucchini colored crayon, flash mobs, alien control, hot air balloons, and three unlikely heroes make this novel a very fun read.

THE PLAN

Every meeting begins with an icebreaker. I like to give everyone an opportunity to get to know one another and I think that icebreakers are a really fun way to get participants up and moving. This month, we played Icebreaker BINGO. I learned that my dad does not like mushrooms and that one of my regular participants likes to read more than three books a month.

ice_breaker_bingo.pdf
File Size:	150 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

After Icebreaker BINGO, we played our discussion game. With the help of my brilliant parents, we constructed a sofa out of cardboard boxes, a wrapping paper tube, and wrapping paper. I made a hole in the sofa before we wrapped and assembled everything together. I made sure to make the hole big enough for an adult sized hand.

One of the participants noted that the sofa was not green. I told them that the sofa decided to dress up in some formal wear so that it could look fancy for Book and Cookie Club.

The questions that I created for the "What We Found in the Sofa" discussion game can be found on pages 3 - 11 of the downloadable file (below). The left hand column of the questions were cut out, folded, and placed inside of the sofa. The right hand column has the questions, correct answers, and page numbers.

what_we_found_in_the_sofa_march_2018.pdf
File Size:	353 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

In the last 25 to 30 minutes of the program, I like to have different book related activities stationed around the program room for participants to either make something or learn a skill. I typically have three stations of activities. This month our stations were: Crayon Resist Art, Dominoes, and a DIY Hologram Projector.

A couple of the kiddos were having trouble with the paint brushes, so I took out some sponges for them to use instead. The sponges worked really well. In the future, I think I would consider using some cream colored paper to make it easier for everyone to see what they are drawing.

My dad's family hails from Puerto Rico where dominoes are a pastime. At family gatherings it is common for there to be a game of dominoes being played. My dad taught the Book and Cookie crew how to play dominoes. I used one of my classroom sets of dominoes. I'm glad that I decided to go with the classroom set because the table was packed!

I throught it would be neat for us to make the DIY Smartphone Hologram Projector. It works, but there are some things to consider when you go to make one of these nifty contraptions. It isn't going to work well if you have a PopSocket on your phone case. A flat surface is necessary for this to work really well. Also, you need to make sure you watch a video that is specifically made for a smartphone hologram projector. The hologram videos will have four copies of the same image on the screen. My favorite is the Jellyfish video.

0 Comments

February Book and Cookie Club: El Deafo

3/1/2018

0 Comments

Book & Cookie Club is a one hour long book discussion for students in 3rd through 5th grade and their adult caregivers. I have been facilitating this program since December of 2015. It is one of my favorite programs because I get to come up with new activities, icebreakers, and discussion games every month!

THE BOOK

This month we read El Deafo by Cece Bell. I thought that it was time for us to read another graphic novel. I try to change the genre and format as often as I can because I want my Book & Cookie Club Crew to have the opportunity to read books featuring different genres, styles of writing, characters, and viewpoints. I know that I have my favorite genres (fantasy, more fantasy, and even more fantasy) which means this program gets me to read outside of my comfort zone!

I have included a PDF to a list of all of the titles we have read in Book & Cookie Club!

book_and_cookie_club_titles.pdf
File Size:	669 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

THE PLAN

Our Icebreaker for this month was "A Big Wind Blows." I found the idea for this icebreaker on The Drama Notebook. When I was writing up my plans, I decided to have a premade list for this activity so that I could keep the pace and the engery high for this icebreaker.

I went high tech with our discussion game this month! I created a Kahoot! and used six of our circulating iPads for everyone to play in Team Mode. Click here to check out my Kahoot!

If you are interested in seeing how I planned for Book and Cookie Club this month, click here for my plans.

Our book related activities this month consisted of three stations: DIY Warm Fuzzies, Graphic Novel 101, and Designer Ears.

The Warm Fuzzy station was a hit. I discovered these glittery Pom Poms in our program room craft supply stash and knew they would be a good choice. My Book & Cookie Crew decided the blue ones were "cold pricklies." There were some warm fuzzies with wings and even some mutant warm fuzzies!

The Graphic Novels 101 Station. This was a very popular area! I found some amazing graphic novel templates on Teachers Pay Teachers and printed them off. I put several of our drawing books on display for the kids & caregivers to use. There were short graphic novellas about Star Wars, unicorns, and tests!

I was hoping to use the SoundExploratorium app, but it appears that they have discontinued it (sad panda). I wanted to do a science based activity with hearing and found this one called "Designer Ears" on the Exploratorium website.

Next month we will be discussing What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World by Henry Clark. We will also have a surprise guest joining us that evening - my mom!

0 Comments

January Book & Cookie Club: The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher

1/31/2018

0 Comments

THE BOOK

This month, we read and discussed the book The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy. It's a fabulous story about four brothers and their adventures and mishaps throughout the school year.

THE PLAN

I start every meeting with an icebreaker. Participants were challenged to make words out of the phrase "Family Fletcher." This was a very popular activity. Some of my favorite words were : fairy, fart, and retch.

making_words.pdf
File Size:	44 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

After the icebreaker, we played our discussion game. Participants came up to the line, I asked a question about the book, and if they answered correctly they got to take a penalty shot. There were some fascinating techniques that were used to get the wiffle ball into the goal. A PDF copy of the questions is down below. I get a little silly when I write the multiple choice questions because the point of this program is to have some fun with friends and develop a love of reading.

family_fletcher_questions.pdf
File Size:	797 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

Hockey stick is made out of a yardstick and cardstock.

One of the Fletcher brothers has a knack for telling scary stories. We tried our hands at our own scary story creation. I found a really fun Spooky Ghost Story Madlib from Diva Girl Parties and Stuff. The end result of the madlib had everyone roaring with laughter.

I always like to put together some activity stations for each book that we discuss. This month, I had three stations: draw a pug, building bridges challenge, and finger soccer.

For the draw a pug station, I found a really neat video from Draw So Cute on YouTube that teaches you how to draw a pug. I also found some tutorials on Pinterest which I printed and displayed. I wanted to have an option for participants that were feeling too impatient to follow along with the YouTube video. I had a few darling Pug-icorns, and I am sad to say I forgot to take pictures of them!

For the bridge building challenge, I put out various items that participants could use to construct a bridge: straws, popsicle sticks, dominoes, jenga blocks, and masking tape. The bridge had to be stable enough to hold some rubber bugs. The challenge was to fit as many rubber bugs onto the bridge without causing the bridge to collapse.

The finger puppet soccer station was a lot of fun to put together. I used large green construction paper and created a small scale soccer field. I printed off a couple of soccer player finger puppets from Kara's Party Ideas. I am glad that I used cardstock for the finger puppets because regular printer paper would have ripped easily. For the ball, I used a pom-pom. Adults and kids had a lot of fun playing finger puppet soccer.

Next month, we will be discussing El Deafo by Cece Bell.