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

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.

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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
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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. 

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what_we_found_in_the_sofa_march_2018.pdf
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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.  

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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.