Monday afternoon we met for a “medieval themed” book club meeting. About half the kids had read the book — The Whipping Boy (some had not finished and some participants were younger brother and sisters who joined us for the event) so we started with book commercials — defined by “The Book Whisperer” and teacher, Donalyn Miller as “short, impromptu testimonials from students about the books that they have read and enjoyed. (Think about how you might tell a friend about a book over lunch.) The intent of a book commercial is to provide students with a forum for sharing the books they love and for recommending those books to other readers in the class.”
The second benefit to this introduction was that everyone was up so speed on the setting and the time of the book. We launched right into a fun game with skittles. I assigned the kids with a “feudal class title” – Katie – was the Queen, the 3 and 4 year-old siblings who were along for the fun were the Nobles, and everyone else was a peasant. The game started with everyone having 10 candies in their bag. The peasants had to pay the Nobles for land rental and protection– that was a skittle for each — leaving everyone with five skittles. Then they all had to pay taxes to the Queen – four skittles – and only one left in their bags. As you can imagine everyone was alarmed by the inequity of the candy distribution. We finished the game with discussions about over taking the Queen, leaving the kingdom and becoming hobos, or employing Robin Hood tactics to even the score. I’m pretty sure they got the point, because I imagine most medieval street corner discussions to have run along the same themes. I did in the end give everyone a few skittles – just to keep the peace.
Then it was time for a scavenger hunt looking for the Queen’s treasure. I had placed random items all over the park where we were meeting. The hunt started with a clue that they had to solve together. Then as a team they had to go find the item they were looking for. The last brought them to the wagon that I had filled with laffy taffy for everyone.
The last activity was the reading of a ballad – our Queen Katie offered to read it. We had a short discussion about how ballads tell stories and are sometimes funny or romantic.
Finally, we talked about the next book on our list – Harriet the Spy. It’s a longer book – 300+ pages and some of our younger readers were not feeling confident about trying it – so we decided that everyone who reads it will do a commercial about it next time and everyone that wants to take a pass will read another book and be ready to tell the group about it. That way the younger brothers and sisters can continue to participate in the fun and hear about books they might want to read as well.
I am really happy that the kids all participated and got excited about a book club. My goal is for them all to become avid and skilled readers – so there is not a lot of pressure to have a big discussion or make it an overly academic event. Instead I’ve tried to make it all about how “cool” reading is and how much fun it can be to share books with each other.
Hope everyone had a great time… Happy Reading!
8busyfeet 
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