Homeschool Club, 3rd Edition

First day back with the Homeschool Club today, and I had 27 kiddos (huge for our library).

Two years ago, I worked with a local co-op to establish goals and the purpose of the group.

1. Get kids used to public speaking.
2. Give kids opportunities to work in groups (who aren't siblings).
3. Kids work with a different adult.

We have been meeting during the school year once a month for an hour.

What went down:

We started with a getting to know you game: on the way into the meeting room, kids were given toilet paper and told, "Take as much as you think you will need."  That was it, no further instructions. After all the kids had their toilet paper, I took 4 squares myself and started off by touching each square one at a time as I made statements:
1. My name is Kathy.
2. I work at the library.
3. I like to watch mysteries on TV.
4. I like to play volleyball.

One of the older kids had already played the game before, he had taken 6 squares and wanted to go next. After he went, I had the kids guess what the toilet paper was for before we had everyone else go. When some stragglers came in, the kids went wild suggesting the late comers take a lot or a little (got a little loud for a moment).

The kids all cooperated beautifully, even the kid who took 37 squares!

For each kid the first square was to say their name, and I would have the group repeat the name back to me. If they stopped listening, I would just ask them the last thing the kid said, "Did anyone hear what restaurant John likes to visit?" Occasionally I had to prompt kids, what do you like to do outside, what's your favorite color, etc,. This game took A LOT longer than I had anticipated, we were left with about 20  minutes.

I had the Alike, Different sheet ready as a back up activity to the main activity (that we never even got to), so I used it for the back up activity to the ice breaker!

We finished with the same and different game. The kids had to find 5 other kiddos and write something they had in common in the circle, and something that was different outside the bubble. The younger kids had a harder time with this activity (4 & 5 year olds) because they couldn't write/spell or were reluctant to do so, but between myself and some of the older kids, we got their sheets completed for them. This was great for working on initiating a conversation with people, you wouldn't believe how hard this is for kids. I had the opportunity to model for them A LOT! Incentive to finish the sheet: they could go when it was full.

Here's the blank sheet:

Edible Homeschool Fun

Our final Homeschool club was today and I've been seeing all of the fun Edible Books for National Library Week and decided to try it out with just my Homeschool groups. I told them to create something edible based on one of their favorite books. I was so impressed with the creativity!!

This book was checked out, but I found a YouTube clip of Eric Carle reading the book, and the kids were super excited about listening to him read his own book.

Turkish Delight

The grocery store was out of blueberries!
(I had the same problem)

The 11 year old boy came up with this one by himself. He recited the prophecy from memory when he realized the books were all checked out! It was super impressive, and I love this series.

My attempt at a healthy edible book! Strawberries, (frozen) blueberries, and chocolatey mud!

I set up two tables for the creations to go on. When they were all set up, I presented mine first and read Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes to the kids. I had the kids warm up to help me sing Pete's song using Jim Gill's Toe, Leg, Knee song. After I read my book, the next kids read their book, too. And the next and the next. I wasn't planning on having them all read their books, but it worked out great. I had just asked them to tell me about their display and talk about the book a little bit. Some of the chapter book kids had to do that, but it worked out for them as well. By the end of the presentation the kids had drifted from the tables to the floor in front of the readers!

This has been one of the most exciting series of programs I've done. Watching some of the kids go from crying at the beginning of the year when s/he presented their all about me posters to reading a book in front of a group of 20 kids was so rewarding. I can't wait to see what next year will bring.

Side note on the Pete the Cat Shoes "cupcakes" for anyone looking for preschool ideas for a 1000 Books Program or other Early Literacy Event idea: 1 1/2 twinkies, and white frosting and about 5 minutes of my time. This would make a great parent/ child activity for preschool aged chidlren. Fine motor for spreading the frosting and talking about what to decorate the shoe with to rehash the story. . . I'm re-using this idea in the future.

If you Give the Children a Mad Lib

Homeschool Club last month rocked!

I ordered twenty copies of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff so each pair of kids could share a book. I went over the different parts of the books with the kids and it was great. There were several different editions of the book, so book jackets, end papers and covers were different on some allowing the children to use the new words for different parts of the book to explain the differences. After we talked about the different parts, we choral read the story together. It was so much fun to hear twenty little voices reading the book together (a nerdy librarian heaven). We talked about the illustrations and how they gave picture clues to what was happening with the words of the story.

I found a mad lib on the blog Play Dr Mom that took out the nouns and verbs and some adjectives to make it a fun Mad Lib. Each home school student got a sticker with "noun", "verb", or whatever words were missing. This was a great opportunity to go over the definitions of those types of words. After a student contributed, they handed me their sticker. This allowed for everyone to have their own unique word. The older kids were pretty patient waiting for the younger kids to come up with their words. After I had all of the words, I read aloud the result as I wrote it out on slips of paper.

Each child then got a slip of paper with a sentence from the story, a piece of scratch art paper and a little wooden stick to scratch their illustrations with. I reminded them about what we had talked about with illustrations. There were more children than strips of paper, so I had one of the older children make the title page and some of the others made up their own funny parts of the story and we added them in. It is super easy because you just put, "and then . . . " it doesn't have to make sense because the mad lib in general was silly.

The results were put in a binder. I had numbered the slips ahead of time and was able to put them back in order as I got each finished page from the children.

It was a fun packed hour and the book is in a binder on display in our children's area!