July Book & Cookie Club

Magic is in the air!  The Party That Shall Not Be Named is just a couple of days away!  I managed to remember to choose a book with magic and fantasy this month so that I could promote The Party!

Our book for this month was Upside Down Magic by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, and Emily Jenkins.

Book Trailer

Activities

Icebreaker: What's On Your Mind?  A Drawing Game

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!

Stations

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

Animal Flip Book

Since Nory, the main character from Upside Down Magic, can flux into more than one type of animal at a time, I thought it would be cool to create  an animal flip book.

I found the original idea for the flip book from Sketchbook Challenge.

I made a new version, including a unicorn because I LOVE UNICORNS!  

I had participants color in the pictures.  When they were done coloring we bound the book together using a comb binding machine, and then we cut horizontally on the lines.  

Yoga Poses & Breathing Exercises

Ms. Starr likes to have her Upside Down Magic (UDM) students do yoga so that they can get in touch with their feelings.

I hung up some posters of various yoga poses from Mindful Practices Yoga and I also shared some breathing exercises from Childhood 101. 

Ice Paint Pictures

​Elliott is a flare that freezes everything he touches.  I had pictures of every day objects that participants could collage onto a piece of paper then paint over with “ice paint”.

Ice paint consists of glue, shaving cream, and glitter.

Balloon Yo-Yos

Andres is a flyer that floats 24/7. 365 days a year.  In honor of his flying talent, we made balloon yo-yos.  The supplies are pretty simple (flour, balloons, funnel, and rubber bands) and this is a fun (and messy) activity. 

​Messy activities are the best because they =  #MaximumFun!

Mess = #MaximumFun and the need for a vacuum cleaner

Rock Decorating

Bax is a fluxxer that turns into a rock.  So, in honor of Bax we decorated some smooth river rocks with gold, copper, and silver sharpies!  One of the kiddos from The Crew made a rock for me that says "I love unicorns" that will serve as my post-it note paperweight at my desk :)

Game: Catch the Dragon

​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.

Goodie Bag

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