I divided our participants into two groups.  They had to answer questions about the book and answer the question correctly in order to be lead to the next question. The questions were hidden in different places within the Children's Department.  The last question lead them to the children's reference desk where they were given a cryptogram puzzle to solve.  Once they solved the puzzle they could choose a "Top Secret" note pad or pencil as their prize.

Part of being an excellent detective/spy is being able to come up with amazing disguises.  I set-up a mini photo booth, my personal puppet stash, photo booth props from Target, and an iPad for The Crew to snap photos.  These are pictures that the kids took.  

I used crepe paper to create the obstacle course.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to squeeze, bend, and wiggle their way through this "laser" obstacle course.

We used a Padlet to talk about two questions: What is it like when you are the first to do something?  and Why is it important to have a support system?

I found the coolest downloadable resource called "Space STEM Challenges" from Kim Carroll on Teachers Pay Teachers.  It had lots of great activities that I just had to print off.  It was a huge time saver and I am so glad that I will be able to use some of the activities again in our Makerspace.  

​I also bought some badges from Amazon and made NASA badges for the kids to wear.

I created the badges on PicMonkey with graphics from Pixabay and Clipart Library.

Since we had a late start (thanks to the snowprise), we did not get to do the discussion game.  I planned to break everyone into 4 groups.  Each group would recieve a question card.  They would answer the question and bring the card to me.  If the answer was correct, I would give them a part of a unicorn and their next question.  I found a neat unicorn puppet printable from Arty Crafty Kids (you have to sign up to get the free unicorn puppet).

Marigold zapped off Dakota's hair which means The Crew has an opportunity to design a new look for Dakota!  I tried my best to free-hand Dakota and copied her likeness onto cardstock.  The Crew members gave Dakota a Pom Pom hair-do, a Rapunzel inspired hair-do, and a polka dot hair-do.

I recently attended a training given by one of my amazing colleagues about book discussions and she inspired me to add a new component to Book and Cookie Club - “Book Talk”.  I set aside 5 minutes for the Crew to share their thoughts on the book. I created some Google Slides that posed some questions: “How would you rate this book?”, “What did you like about this book?”, and “Would you recommend this book to a friend?”  

For the longest time, I was not sure how to approach discussing and evaluating the books that we read for Book and Cookie because I did not want it to feel like school.  I wanted to maintain the fun atmosphere that I established and was not sure how to tackle evaluating the books.
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After my colleague's inspiring workshop, I decided that there was a way for me to have The Crew evaluate the books and that there was a fun way to do it.  I thought of the three questions I wanted The Crew to answer then I browsed Giphy for inspiration.

I am happy to report that The Crew had a lot of fun sharing their thoughts on the book and our first “Book Talk” was a big hit.  The Crew had some really great thoughts and opinions on the book and we even extended our “Book Talk” by sharing what book characters we would love to meet in real life.  

Click here to see the slideshow I created for "Book Talk" (includes GIFs & questions)

Originally, I was going to make a Kahoot, but it was finals week at the high school and our WiFi needed a bit of a break.  I decided to create a Jeopardy-style game but with a twist.

I purchased one of those science fair cardboard tri-folds and covered it with Kraft paper. I printed the spell book clipart from Krista Wallden onto brown construction paper to create “flaps” that I could lift up to reveal questions about the book.
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I divided the room into two teams - “Billy Goats Gruff” vs. “Three Musketeers.”

Each team selected a captain and the captains picked the questions they would like to answer - i.e. L 20.

We played until we ran out of questions.

I provided books and various art materials for The Crew so that they could design new book covers that would be displayed in the library.

I made some examples of redesigned book covers and wrote up explanations of how I went about designing the new cover.  I used PicMonkey with the help of graphics from Pixabay to help me create my redesigned book cover examples.

We also discussed how the editors of a publishing company will select the cover art that goes on a book.  It is not common for an author to have input on what gets put on the cover of their book. This led to a good discussion of judging books by their covers and how that sometimes the best books have the worst covers.
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If I were to do this activity again, I would do a few things differently.  I would have The Crew go out and select a book they have already read, I would give them more time to work on their designs, and provide laptops for those that wish to design their covers digitally.

Click here to see my plans for this month’s Book and Cookie and the station signs for the different activities.

Our first book of 2019 will be “Phoebe and Her Unicorn: A Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle” by Dana Simpson.  I cannot wait! 

Our book for this month was Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

The Crew came up with their Book Scavenger name using the formula on the “What’s Your Book Scavenger Name” sheet.  The Crew found the first letter of their first name and the first letter of their last name on the grid to get their Book Scavenger name.

The Crew worked in groups of 3-4 to answer questions, solve puzzles, ciphers, magic squares, decode secret messages & more!  Their goal was to locate books that were disguised in bookstumes and hidden around the children's department.

I made a word find with all of the items that Minli packed into her bag before she left to find the Old Man of the Moon.  I used this Word Search Maker on The Teacher's Corner to generate the wordsearch.

I like to open every meeting with an ice breaker.  I think it is a fun way to get everyone acquainted.  I broke the group up into two separate teams.  Each team received a deck of Book Besties cards. The team that correctly matched the Book Besties the fastest was declared the winner.

I borrowed this game from my boss.  We played it at one of our department meetings this past winter.   It’s pretty low prep and the results are hilarious.

Participants are given a paper plate and a marker.  Have the participants place the paper plate on top of their head.  Remind participants that the plate must stay on their head until the activity is complete.

For an extra challenge, you can have participants use their non-dominant hand to draw!

As participants hold the paper plate on their head, tell them to draw the following:

• A flower in some grass
• To the left of the flower, draw a bunny rabbit
• A sun in the sky
• To the right of the flower, draw a squirrel climbing a tree
• Draw some birds in the sky
• Draw a ladybug on top of the flower
• Give the sun a pair of sunglasses
• Draw some clouds in the sky

Participants can take their plate off from the top of their head and look at their remarkably hilarious art!

All of our station activities honored a character from Upside Down Magic.

​I planned a game of “catch the dragon” where I would place the dragon in the middle of the room.  I would ask a question about the book, and the first person to grab the dragon could answer the question.

However, we never got to the game because everyone had so much fun trying out the different stations.

During the summer I like to make goodie bags for Book and Cookie Club.  The bags have activities and items that are themed around the next month's book.   Next month, we will be reading and discussing Extra Credit by Andrew Clements.  Since it will be August and the 2018-2019 school year is almost upon us, I wanted to have some items that the Crew could use at school!

This is what went in the bags for this month:

• Naperville Public Library Pens 
• Assorted Stickers
• Emoji Post-It Notes 
• Letter writing bundle/snail mail activity:
  
  • envelopes (2/bag),
    
  • blank postcards (2/bag)
    
  • blank index cards (2/bag)
• granola bar recipe 
• pocket poems 
• nature scavenger hunt activity

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!

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!