book club for kids

Valentine’s Day Book Club

Dear Sis,

Today we had a house full or kids!

Valentine’s Day Brunch

Chicken & Waffles with Butter & Syrup

Chocolate Chip Muffins & Fresh Strawberries

Raspberry Lemonade & Strawberry Milk

Book

I Love You, Stinky Face by: Lisa McCourt

Lacing Heart Plates

Preparation Instructions

  • Trace a heart onto a study paper plate.
  • Cut out the heart. I used a knife to get started and then I was able to get scissors in there to finish up.
  • Punch holes around the heat.
  • Precut lengths of yarn. Ours were about 2 feet long.

To begin, tie off a length of yarn on the back of the place, lace until the yarn is short, and tie off the other end. Continue as desired with additional strings. Trim knot ends when complete.

STEM Candy Structures

Cinnamon Hearts and Toothpicks

Valentine Pokey – Lyric Printable

Valentine’s Day Bingo

Compliments of a kit from Mama Jenn.

Painted Valentine Plaques

I found these craft kits at Dollar Tree back in January. 

Conversation Heart Relay

We made two groups of kids. Each group had to transfer a container of conversation hearts to a bowl across the room one spoonful at a time. Hearts that drop are left behind. You can determine the winning team, by whomever has the most hearts in the bowl or whomever is fastest. 

Valentine Exchange

We passed out brown paper bags and each of the kiddos gave each other valentines and goodies.

We had a wonderful time! Hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day!

Love,

b

New Year’s Book Club

Dear Sis,

Today, we kicked of the new year with book club.

Book

Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution by: Pat Miller

Craft

This craft is great cutting practice! 

Standing Squirrel Template

This link provides several squirrel crafts. This particular craft is the forth option from the top.

Game

There Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game by Educational Insights

Snack

Acorn Cookie Bites

Print Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • mini vanilla wafer cookies
  • hershey kisses unwrapped
  • milk chocolate chips
  • royal icing

Instructions
 

  • Place cookies upside down on a flat surface. Adhere kisses with icing to the center of each cookie. Stand until dry.
  • Balance cookies in a wire rack, kiss side down. Adhere chocolate chips with icing in the center of each cookie top. Stand until dry.

Woodland Snack Buffet

Acorn Cookie Bites

Dry Leaves (Apple Chips)

Snail Sandwiches (Sliced Sandwich Wraps)

Twigs (Pretzel Sticks)

Wild Berries (Assorted Fresh or Dry Berries)

Song

Happy New Year!

Love,

b

Winter Book Club

Dear Sis,

Today we had a very full house and a lot of fun!

Book

Jenny’s Winter Walk: a kids yoga winter book by Giselle Shardlow

This story follows a mom and daughter on a winter walk. Each page also features a yoga pose. I wasn’t sure how a yoga book would go over, but everyone really enjoyed it!

Craft: Winter Landscape

Materials

  • 8×10 inch canvas
  • light blue acrylic paint
  • sponge brush
  • stick
  • hot glue
  • white acrylic paint
  • cotton swab
  • glitter

Assembly

  1. Paint the entire canvas blue using a sponge brush. Dry fully.
  2. Hot glue stick in place.
  3. With white paint, paint a snow-covered ground at the base of the stick to make it look like a tree.
  4. Dab on more white to create snow flakes.
  5. Dust with glitter. 

These winter scenes turned out great! We had kids between 4 and 9, who were all able to make one with pleasing results.

Craft: Snow Globe

Materials

  • plastic mason jar
  • miniature evergreen figurine
  • hot glue
  • distilled water
  • glycerine
  • glitter

Assembly Instructions

  1. Glue evergreen figurine to inside of jar lid with hot glue.
  2. Fill jar with distilled water, leaving only a small space at the top.
  3. Add a few drops of glycerin. The glycerine helps keep the glitter from sticking to the jar when it settles. Too much makes the glitter clump together, so be careful.
  4. Add an 1/8 t glitter. Too much glitter tends to stick to the bottom when it settles.
  5. Close jar tightly and give it a shake.

The glycerine:glitter ratio will vary based on the size of your jar. I practiced before book club to get the balance just right.

Game: Roll a Snowman

Free Download: Roll a Snowman Preschool Math Game

Posted on Teachers Pay Teachers by Natural Knowledge

Snack: Bagel Snowman

Ingredients

  • half a plain bagel
  • half a plain mini bagel
  • whipped cream cheese
  • pretzel sticks
  • chocolate yogurt covered raisins
  • fruit roll-up

Song

Party Freeze Dance by The Kiboomers

Instead of “freezing” by staying still, we “froze” by wrapping our arms around ourselves and saying “burr.”

Love,

b

P.S. We also did a book exchange. Each family gently used wrapped books and we swapped at the end.

Thanksgiving Book Club

Dear Sis,

Today we enjoyed a Thanksgiving themed book club. One of our childhood favorites, Cranberry Thanksgiving, has become a household holiday reading sensation, that now we’ve shared with our friends.

Book

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin

Craft

We found a craft kit at Michaels that contained 6 boy and 6 girl scarecrows. Foam sticker crafts are an affordable kid friendly craft, I oven resort to for parties and book club meetings.

Game

Free Thanksgiving Bingo by Homegrown Learners

Snack

We recreated the meal from the book. It included: Turkey, Corn Pudding, Peas, Turnips, (which none in our group had tried before, but many discovered they enjoyed), Cranberry Jelly, Pumpkin Pie, and of course Grandmother’s famous Cranberry Bread. The recipe is in the back of the book. I substituted dry cranberries for fresh, so that it would be more child friendly. 

Song

This is the original 1857 lyrics, written by James Lord Pierpont. Although Thanksgiving was not nationalized as a holiday until 1863, it was widely celebrated, and this song was written as part of the festivity of the season. 

The moms sang the verses, the kids chimed in for the chorus and manned the bells. We found hand bell straps at Menards for $1.00 each.

Printable Jingle Bells Lyrics

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

b

 

Halloween Book Club

Dear Sis, 

Book

The Hallo-Wiener by Dav Pilkey

Craft

Pumpkin Painting & Decorating

Game

Melissa and Doug Monster Bowling




Snack

Apple Cider

Cheese, Sausage, Veggie Tray with Ranch Dip in a Pumpkin

Cheeto Bag of Bones

Mummy Hot Dogs

Sugar Cookie Decorating!

Song

We played the Monster Mash by Bobby Pickett while Monster Bowling.

Happy Halloween!

Love,

b

Book Club – The Last Peach

Dear Sis,

Today was book club/Charlotte’s kid birthday party. Her birthday theme: Sweet as a Peach, sent me searching for a perfect book! We found The Last Peach by Gus Gordon.

Book

Craft

Build-a-Bug

  • Printable Build-a-Bug Cards by Tag Sis, You’re It!
  • play dough
  • pipe cleaners, cut into quarters
  • wiggly eyes
  • craft jewels




Game

Mystery Fruit Bag

Fill a large paper bag with an assortment of fruit. We used an apple, banana, kiwi, orange, peach, pear, and plum. In turn, have each kid reach into the bag without looking and ask them to pull out a specific fruit. If they find the right one, they can keep it. If they don’t, it goes back into the bag. Play continues until all the fruit is gone. Whomever collects the most fruit wins.

Song

The Peach Song

Love,

b

Book Club – Dragons Love Tacos

Dear Sis, 

Today was our second book club! We used one of our favorite books this month: Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.

Book

Craft

Free Dragon Mask Template by Taking Care of Monkey Business

Game

Taco Party Card Game Printable

This game is for 2-4 players, ages 3 and up. We printed ours on card stock, backed the playing cards with fun scrapbook paper and laminated them for durability. We hope you enjoy playing too!!!

Snack

Taco Bar!

Song

Raining Tacos

Love,

b

Bunny’s Book Club

Dear Sis,

Book

Reading Bunny’s Book Club by Annie Silverstro, inspired William to ask if we could have our own book club. We planned our first meeting in March, but it was postponed due to the quarantine for COVIN-19. After waiting several months, William finally had his first book club meeting.

Craft

I found foam rabbit craft kits at the dollar store back around Easter time and bought a half dozen of them for book club.

Game

Throwing things is always a hit with little people, we made the bunny out of foam board for extra rigidity. The carrot bean bags are made with felt.

Snacks

Lemonade & Sweet Tea

Carrot Cupcakes

Leaping Bunny PB&J

Baby Carrots & Ranch

Annie’s Cheddar Bunny Crackers

Song

Hop Little Bunnies

The kids really enjoyed this action song.

We ended up dancing to it three times:)

Our book club was attended by five kids, and two babies. It took us 1.5 hours to get through all the material.

Love,

b