Charlie & the Chocolate Factory Book Club

I'm way behind on posting so I'm playing a little catch up today.  My daughter's book club read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in February.  The book club date fell on Valentine's Day so we made our own chocolate factory and Valentine treats! 

These were the items they started with...

I melted chocolate, almond bark and red candy melts for dipping.  There was also a cookie decorating station with heart shaped sugar cookies and decorator's icing.

 

They really enjoyed dipping everything in the chocolate!

 

One of the almost- finished products....

 

Needless to say, this was a pretty popular book club activity!

After they finished dipping their goodies, they took them to the living room and we watched the movie.

Fun day!

Old Yeller and Of Mice and Men

My daughter's book club read Old Yeller this month.  My son's read Of Mice and Men.  I never really noticed how much those two books had in common until I sat down to organize the book club discussions for both of them.

The most obvious similarity is that one main character shoots the other main character in the end, but there really is more than that.

Each story has a limited number of characters.  There are not a whole lot of extra characters in either of these books.  That really keeps the focus on the main characters.  Both books also had some major foreshadowing in them.  In Old Yeller, Travis had to shoot the cow with hydrophobia which foreshadowed him shooting Old Yeller for the same reason.  In Of Mice and Men, Candy's dog was shot to keep it from suffering any more.  Lenny was shot for sort of the same reason.

Both Travis and George had sort of a love-hate relationship with Old Yeller and Lenny, respectively.
Travis didn't like Old Yeller at first, but his mother let him stay and he eventually grew to love him.  George was also sort of stuck with Lenny in the same way.  He felt obligated to watch over him since Aunt Clara died.  Both Old Yeller and Lenny did things to get on the nerves of Travis and George, but Travis and George still tolerated them, and, yes, even loved them.

Both Travis and George shot Old Yeller and Lenny to keep them from suffering.  Old Yeller had fatal hydrophobia and Curly was closing in on Lenny and planned to shoot him in the gut to make him suffer.  Both felt that they were saving them from a worse fate.

I'm sure you can find many more similarities between the two books.  These are just some of the major ones I'm going to talk about in my son's Of Mice and Men book club this week.


Old Yeller:

My daughter's book club has already met for this month.  We discussed the book, watched the Disney movie and churned our own butter.  They ate it with corn bread.  We also had some pioneer bread and homemade jelly.  My butter churn has gotten lots of use over the years with various lessons.  The kids always enjoy churning butter!

Of Mice and Men:

My son's book club is meeting in a couple of days.  We will discuss the book and watch the movie starring John Malkovich.  I'm going to try not to cry at the end!  Our local theater put on Of Mice and Men this month.  That was why I planned the book when I did.  Most of the book club kids were able to come with us to see it.  It was showing last weekend so we got together and watched it.  It was a very good production.  Now, the kids will be able to compare the book, the movie and the play!

Dracula Book Club

My son's book club read Dracula by Bram Stoker this month.  It's a very good book.  If you've never read it, I highly recommend it.  I'm pretty sure that no Dracula movie ever has ever actually followed the book so if you've seen one of the movies you probably still haven't seen the whole story!  We watched the 1931 version and it was not accurate at all.  The kids enjoyed making fun of it though!

Our book club refreshments....

Cupcakes that had been sampled by vampires.  (Yes, they were red velvet inside!)

A pitcher of type B Blood....

And some GARLIC toast for good measure!

 

I ran across this decoration at the Dollar Tree store so I just had to get it. 

I put it on the bathroom mirror.

Here's a couple of good study guides that we used for our discussion:  

 

http://www.novelguide.com/dracula/metaphor-analysis

http://www.penguinreaders.com/pdf/downloads/pr/teachers-notes/9781405878982.pdf

 

It was the perfect book for our Halloween book club!

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!

Sarah Plain and Tall

My daughter's book club is officially underway this year!

The first book was a short one since we were gone on vacation for a whole week before the meeting.

The book was Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan.

Claire, who absolutely LOVED all of the Little House books, really liked this one. 

She loves stories of girls in pioneer days.

 

The night before book club I made some pioneer bread. 

It was very easy to make and tasted really good.

 

 

 

I let the kids spread on whatever they wanted...

I had butter, apple butter and homemade jelly.

 

 

My original plan was to have them churn the butter.  (I have a butter churn.)  However, we'd only been back from vacation for two days and I didn't have any cream or any time to run to the store so we had to make due with store-bought butter.

 

We also watched the Hallmark movie that was made from the book.  I hear there is a trilogy of these movies, but I have not seen part 2 or 3.  Finding part 1 was hard enough!

 

I used a Scholastic reading guide that I found online for the discussion.  

The bread recipe is on pg. 57 of this guide.  Click the link above to open it.

 

Next month we're reading How to Eat Fried Worms.  I have a feeling my daughter isn't going to like that one as much, but I plan on having lots of fun at that book club!!

Peeps Diorama Contest

If you read my last post you know that we've been making Peeps dioramas for the contest in our newspaper. I had Nathan's bookclub make them too, but with a twist...they all had to be a classic work of literature. Five of the bookclub kids participated. I think they did a great job!

All of them will be entered in our newspaper's contest, but I am also having a contest on my blog for just the book club kids. So please leave a comment telling me which is your favorite diorama. (just vote for one please!) I have a prize that I'm going to give to the child with the most votes. I have 3 pictures of each diorama...1 that shows the complete diorama and 2 close-ups that show detail. It would really help us out if you could vote for one!

1. Little Peeps on the Prairie:

2. Gulliver and the Lilli-peep-tians:

3. Peep the Raven Nevermore:

4. Peeperbury Tales:

5. Peeper Pan:

Didn't the kids do a good job? Please vote for your favorite. Please only vote once and immediate family members of the book club kids may not vote at all! :)

Voting ends Wednesday, April 13th.

If you want to see the one Claire and I made (which is not up for voting) you can scroll down or go here.

Homeschool Talk: Books are a Treasure!

Today's homeschool talk is about one of the great classics...Treasure Island!

My son is reading this book for his homeschool book club this month so I thought I'd share some resources and ideas. This semester he is actually reading several books by Robert Louis Stevenson. Click the following link to go to the Robert Louis Stevenson Website. http://dinamico2.unibg.it/rls/rls.htm

My son is 11 so he's not really into doing crafts that go along with the books, but if your child is here is a good website: http://www.easyfunschool.com/article2275.html

When we meet for book club this month we will be meeting at a park. I'm going to send the kids on a treasure hunt. I'm going to stick clues all around the park and when they collect all of the clues and put them together the back of them will reveal a treasure map. This map will lead them to a hidden treasure chest full of goodies. Now, I must admit, this is going to be as much fun for me as it will be for the kids! Since books are treasures themselves I think I'll include a book for each child in the chest as well as some treats to snack on during our book discussion.

Before the treasure hunt all of the kids will have to have a pirate name. I'm going to have them draw from 2 different cans of names and use their first name as the middle name. For example, if my son, Nathan draws Salty and Fourfingers then his name would be Salty Nathan Fourfingers!

I've always thought pirates were interesting and pirate parties really fun. (We did one a few years ago for my son.) I've listed some pirate links in the "homeschool corner" section of my margin. Check them out...they are a lot of fun!

At every book club we discuss the book. These kids are 10-12 yrs. old and they get really into it. I've always been surprised at just how much they get out of reading. We also will watch the movie if one exists. EVERY movie we've ever watched has resulted in me hearing the same thing from the kids...THE BOOK WAS BETTER! That phrase just makes me feel so good!

One last link: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/penguin/treasureisland_penguin.pdf

This is a complete guide to Treasure Island by Penguin Books. Its the one I'm using for my son and you can download it free!