How to Eat Fried Worms Book Club

My daughter's book club read How to Eat Fried Worms.  I had a lot of fun planning this one!  I actually had her convinced that I was going to feed them real worms.  A few days before book club she even caught me out in the yard digging up some earthworms.  She was horrified!  Of course, I was only digging them up so the kids could observe real worms, but I didn't tell her that! (insert evil laugh!)

We discussed the book and watched the movie, which was nothing like the book.  Really, Hollywood?  I sometimes wonder if those making the movies actually read the books first.  It wasn't a bad movie, just didn't follow the book.

We also had a tasting contest.  I fried up various foods that resembled worms.  I rotated the kids around to each one and let them taste it and write down what they thought it was.  I have some picky eaters, but they were all very receptive.  I was very proud of them for trying new things!  Don't worry...I didn't force anyone to eat anything.  I don't want to be the cause of anyone's therapy years down the road!

Here were our "worms".....

Calamari...

 

Fried String Cheese...

 

Fried Onions....



Fried pickles...



fried fettuccini...

fried apples...

 

Claire during the taste contest.....

I also made my own gummy worms.  I found the idea on Pinterest.  I don't know about you, but often when I make something I see on Pinterest it doesn't quite turn out the way I thought it would so I only made half of a recipe, which was 50 worms, more than enough.  Here are the instructions that I used.

This is what the project looked like.  Ideally, you need to fill the cup/container completely with straws so that they all fill up and you don't have so much excess.  These turned out long enough though and it was easy to squeeze out the worms since there was about an inch or so of straw with nothing in it.  If you don't fill up the straws be sure to put the bendy part at the bottom so the worms come out with "stripes."

This is the finished product.  Pretty gross, huh? 

They are exactly the size and texture of a big earthworm...a little unnerving to eat!

I added a few Oreo crumbs to look like dirt.

 



 

 

And for being good sports in the taste what I fried contest, the kids got wormy pudding cups!

 

 

Here's one of the real worms we observed....

 

Enchanted Learning had some good info on worms.

 

  The kids were pretty funny.  I had them fill out a chart before the taste contest stating whether they'd eat a food, maybe eat it for $50, or wouldn't eat it for a million dollars.

 

 

One of the items on the list was squid.  I think every child marked that they wouldn't eat it for a million dollars, or maybe for $50.  Most of them ate the calamari and liked it!  I told them later that they had squid.  I think they were proud of the fact that they ate something exotic!  Some of them actually guessed some of the foods were worms...and they ate them anyway!!!

 

All in all, this was a really fun book club!