Kids Book Club

Post by Rebecca of A Feteful Life All the AFL kiddos are big readers. Well, they aren’t all reading independently, but it’s safe to say Suzanne and I spend A LOT of time reading to our littles. So we thought it would be really fun to have a summer book club for the kids along with a few other friends. And have a little party {with cute decorations} while we’re at it, obviously. Our plan is to do about one per month. We read a book (sometimes a few times), get together for a little discussion and a project, and then follow-up when we can with some sort of related field trip. To help get the kids thinking ahead of time (and allay any nervousness about participating), we had each child think of a discussion question they wanted to ask. And each family will to take a turn hosting and “leading” the discussion. The kiddos span from rising PK’ers to rising 1st graders (plus a few younger siblings), so for our first book, we picked one of the Magic Treehouse series, which seems to work well for many ages: Abe Lincoln at Last! I have to say, I was pretty impressed. As one mom said, “well, they certainly spent longer discussing the book than the adults have at any book club I’ve been to.” And I totally agree. They all came up with good questions and insightful answers. To help everyone take notes, write thoughts, or just draw pictures, we made chalkboard name tag notebooks — they seemed to go over well and keep all the kids sitting still(ish) for the discussion. When everyone started to get a bit restless, we switched over to the other big business of our first meeting: the club name, of course! My son Kane spent a good chunk of time making a “ballot box” and the kids all voted on the name. After settling a little ballot-box stuffing, we ended up with a tie and merged two names together to make: The DC Duck Book Worms! Our DDBWs then did a little craft (making “log cabins”) and all wrote a wish for our “Hope Jar” (the book we read involves giving Abe Lincoln hope with a feather). Then there was lots of pizza and brownies. Running and screaming ensued. The moms hid in the kitchen for cocktail hour. All together, a pretty successful first book club. We plan to have a Lincoln-related field trip once we can pick a good spot — there are lots of options since we live in DC. We’ll report back!

Post by Rebecca Rebecca and Suzanne are bloggers, graphic designers, and event stylists living in Washington, DC.  Rebecca is a mom to two young kiddos and, in her spare time (ha!), likes to pretend she’s a back-up dancer, craft cocktails, and run long distances. Suzanne is a big fan of good design, good wine, and her two rambunctious little boys. They share DIY lifestyle and event styling projects at A Feteful Life. Rebecca also blogs kid-friendly projects at Not-So-SAHM.