- The Adventures with Lily Lapp books by Suzanne Woods Fisher. The girls in my daughter’s book club chose these books as their very favorites. They LOVED them! They’re sweet and inspiring, full of wisdom and fun – perfect for this age group.
- The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. These classic mysteries are easy to read but full of adventures by some very smart and independent children.
- The American Girl Series – particularly Felicity, Kirsten, and Kit. The historical American Girls are great examples of what was happening in American at their particular time in history, and each set covers a full year, so you can see activities that might happen in each season. This provides lots of ideas for club meetings. The American Girl History Mysteries are a bit longer and more challenging, but also great for book clubs.
- Flat Stanley’s Worldwide Adventures by Jeff Brown & Macky Pamintuan. The Flat Stanley books are cute and adventuresome, but they don’t hold a candle to the new ones! Stanley’s flat again and traveling the world, solving mysteries and exploring new territories. This series is a great way to learn about a new place in a fun way. The website also has fun activities listed for each book, so part of your planning is already done for you.
- Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Another classic, kids will love seeing how kids lived back on the prairie – and they’ll especially like trying Laura’s favorite activities.
- The Mandie Books by Lois Gladdys Leppard. I loved these books when I was a kid and saved my money to buy them at our local bookstore. They’re not as easy to find now, but they are available in collections and digitally. My Big Helper is now flying through the series – she loves reading about this adventuresome girl from North Carolina!
- The Cul-de-Sac Kids by Beverly Lewis. These simple chapter books are about a group of kids who are friends and neighbors and the problems they face. In each book that I’ve read, the kids have faced their problems and learned from them.
- Adventures in Odyssey’s Imagination Station. These books are full of adventure but involve lots of history, too, and you can be sure that they’re family friendly.
- Edison’s Gold by Geoff Watson. This book for tweens is packed full of action and adventure, science, history, math – and fun!
- The Recipe for Adventure series by Giada de Laurentiis. These books are easy to read and full of foodie fun!
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “Shoeless Joe & Me” by Dan Gutman
Baseball season has begun, and so our boys chose to step up to the mound with this month’s book choice. They read “Shoeless Joe & Me” by Dan Gutman.
As always, we began inside by summarizing and talking about the book. While the boys aren’t usually particularly loquacious, they surprised me this month. The book is about the fixing of the World Series in 1919 and Shoeless Joe Jackson’s part therein. The boys compared this scandal to current drug scandals, brought up whether gambling is moral even if legal, wanted to know about steroids, and other issues related to the game. What a discussion!
Then we moved on to baseball cards. Each boy had brought a collection, and they were eager to check them out, although they didn’t all value the same types of cards.
Next we made our own peanut-free version of CrackerJack. It was yummy stuff!
While the CrackerJack set up, the boys designed their own baseball cards …
and showed them off a bit …
before deciding that all of this talk of baseball necessitated a game.
Of course, all of that running around made them hungry, and so we broke out our CrackerJack.
So if you’re looking for a good baseball book this season, you won’t go wrong with Shoeless Joe & Me. Just be prepared to grab some friends and go play afterwards – you won’t be able to resist the crack of the bat.
What are your kids’ favorite springtime reads?
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The Pirate Island Adventure” by Peggy Parrish
The weather has finally improved a bit here in the Carolinas, and so our book club moved outdoors for a grand adventure in the style of Peggy Parrish’s Pirate Island Adventure.
After discussing the book and its characters, each child created his own shield.
While they were drying, the boys began solving puzzles in the hopes of finding a great treasure.
They got really into this and worked hard to decipher the clues and figure out the meaning of each one. They really showed great teamwork!
After being stumped on one for quite a while, they finally decided it must be buried under the playset and started to dig – and lo and behold, they found a gold-wrapped chocolate treasure!
The boys worked together to divvy the treasure fairly, even sharing with the girls, before heading off to play in the sunshine.
Doesn’t my little warrior look fierce?
What are you kids reading this month?
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The Lemonade Trick” by Scott Corbett
Planning for last month’s book club was a bit of a challenge. While the wintery weather is usually somewhat mild here in the South, that has not been the case this year – and I didn’t want to risk outside plans. So we chose The Lemonade Trick by Scott Corbett for our January book, and it was perfect for these energetic boys.
With that being said, pictures are limited for this one – because these guys kept me hopping! I wish I had their energy.
After discussing the book, we moved into the kitchen to work with some lemons.
The boys took turns rolling them around on the counter, and then each boy juiced at least one lemon. This provided the juice that we needed for all of our other activities.
We made lemonade from scratch next. We mixed up the simple syrup, measured out the lemon juice and the water, and taste-tested the final results. Since several boys wanted seconds, I guess they liked it!
Next we talked about pH and where acids and bases fell on the pH scale. One boy brought a packet of pH paper, so we tested several liquids that we had on hand. I think our favorite part was when we mixed acids and bases to see what would happen.
After that we went back to the counter and mixed up some easy lemon cookies. We baked just a few, and then decided that it was time to break out the lemon juice again.
One of the great things about lemons is that you can use it like invisible ink. The boys thought this was great, and they were really creative about drawing pictures and writing messages on their paper. They simply dipped a cotton swab into pure lemon juice and drew with it on their papers. One boy even made a paper airplane and decorated that!
Heat will make the lemon juice visible. In the past, blowing on the paper with a hair dryer has worked for me, but I couldn’t get the lemon to show up this time. We ended up trying to ‘candle’ the paper, but since the lemons show up right before the paper catches fire, it didn’t always work out too well. I don’t think the boys minded too much – they were having too much fun laughing at me and dancing around, yelling, “Fire! Fire!”4
I didn’t realize that you could do so very much with a lemon until I went looking, but it’s a really neat fruit – and The Lemonade Trick is a great story.
What would you do with a lemon?
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “How to Eat Fried Worms”
Would you eat a worm?
Would you eat 15 worms?
That’s the question our boys answered this month at book club, when we discussed How to Eat Fried Worms.
This book was the perfect one to follow Shoeless Joe and Me, last month’s book club selection. We again discussed gambling – what it was, whether it’s okay, and inflation amounts from 1973, when this book was originally published.
Then I asked the boys if they would be willing to eat a worm. Each one developed his own recipe for doing so – some more willingly than others. One was quite adamant that while it was fun to make a worm recipe, he would never actually eat a worm.
Then we moved into the kitchen.
Where worm eating became a reality.
I prepared each worm as the boys requested. Of course, these weren’t real worms, but concoctions of Jell-O, cream, and a few other ingredients carefully shaped.
The boys weren’t quite so brave when faced with a pile of real worms. Although My Little Man talked a big story of wormy ketchup and pepper, he didn’t really want to try it.
After one courageous kid tried the worms and declared them to be good, the others gradually tried them, too, and soon they were quite boisterous again …
Until I brought out the real crickets.
An adventurous mom had ordered these from Amazon for us. Who knew you could get bugs in such a variety of flavors? The first boy to try a worm carefully read the ingredient list and then opened the bacon and cheese flavored box of crickets. He declared them to be “crunchy” and ate all but three.
Nobody else would try them.
Can’t say that I blame them.
Then we moved on to worm science. We read a short non-fiction book about the body parts and benefits of worms to the environment and prepared to make our own worm houses. Each boy had his own jar to layer with gravel and then soil.
Then we broke out my dirt shovel and dug for worms. We found enough for each boy to have a few in his jar.
In the few days since book club, My Little Man has watched his worms carefully. He keeps them covered, since we learned that light can paralyze them, but he lifts the paper a few times each day to study the jar and watch for worm tunnels.
Who knew that worms could be so fascinating?
So – would YOU eat a worm?
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “Danger on a Silent Night”
This week our boys got together for a dangerous mission. Their purpose? To find out the purpose of gift-giving at Christmas. To prepare, they read the Imagination Station’s newest book, “Danger on a Silent Night.”
This book examines the debate about gift-giving. Should we or shouldn’t we? Since Jesus clearly calls us to take care of the poor, the orphaned, and the widowed, could we better serve him by giving to them instead of our loved ones?
In this story Patrick and Beth travel back to visit the Wise Men. They speak with King Herod and realize the danger that baby Jesus was in from this mad king, and they race to beat his soldiers to Jesus’ doorstep.
As Patrick travels with the Wise Men, wooden trunks containing gifts are mentioned a few times, and I decided that these would make a neat focus for our boys’ time together.
My husband prepped the wood for each boy’s box during last week’s ice storm, and another boy’s dad very generously came to help us assemble them. We could never have completed this project without his help!
First, we got a few nails set into the wood. After donning goggles and getting hammers, the boys were allowed to pound in that round of nails. We kept doing this until they had secured the bottom and four sides of their trunk.
Then the kind dad helped them add hinges and a latch with the power drill. My Little Man was happy to help hold the box still!
He is very proud of his finished product!
The boys did a great job assembling their trunks. It was neat to see them all pounding away with the hammers.
My favorite part came afterwards, though. We went back inside and I read a new Christmas favorite of mine to them: The Sparkle Box. This book is about what we can give to Jesus at Christmas, and it uses a silvery, sparkly box to hold the gifts. We talked about how we could use our trunks for that purpose – and then the boys ran outside to play basketball.
The boys had some neat insights about what it must have been like to be in Jesus’ presence. About how scary Herod must have been and how angry they were with his decisions. About the purpose of gifts at Christmas.
And so I think we hit our goal this month. The boys interacted with literature. They thought deep thoughts about Christmas. They decided that it’s okay to give gifts at Christmas, as long as we don’t get too crazy.
Because really, isn’t that what Christmas is all about? The gift of Jesus, wrapped up in God’s love, sent down to us?
Book Club Friday – “The Chocolate Sundae Mystery”
All during the school year last year, My Little Man watched his big sister have fun with her book club friends, and he wanted to have one, too. In fact, he asked to start his own club more than once – and I always answered the same way: You can have your own book club when you can read a chapter book.
Well, last spring, he picked up a fictional dinosaur chapter book and put it down after reading the first six chapters to me. Then we knew it was time.
This week My Little Man got together with a few of his friends to have fun with The Boxcar Children’s The Chocolate Sundae Mystery.
We started out by summarizing the story and then reading Ebenezer Bleezer. It’s such a funny poem! The boys each invented their own crazy flavor and drew pictures of them.
Then we headed off to the kitchen to make our own ice cream – for real. They mixed up a batch of super rich chocolate ice cream to put into a countertop churn, and then each boy made his own batch of Freezer Bag Ice Cream.
We tucked the icy bags into satchels and sent the boys outside to churn their ice cream on bikes and scooters. It worked pretty well, and they were able to burn off some energy while they worked.
When both varieties were done, they came inside and created their own sundaes like Benny did in the book. I think they liked this part a lot – and they declared the ice cream to be yummy.
We never could tell which they liked better, though – the vanilla or the chocolate.
Which would you prefer?
Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The Secret of the Prince’s Tomb”
It can be a bit complicated organizing two book clubs, especially for kids who are so close in age. Sometimes, though, I luck out and they can read the same book.
That doesn’t mean that we’ll do the same activities, though.
This month both of our book clubs read the Imagination Station’s book called “Secret of the Prince’s Tomb.” It’s about the cousins, Beth and Patrick, traveling back in time to when the Pharoah first enslaved the Hebrews in Egypt and how they learned to trust God even in hard times. You can read my post about what the girls did here.
After discussing and summarizing the book, the boys made gratitude journals. These were simple books with scrapbook paper stapled over folded copy paper. The boys had fun choosing their animal-print scrapbook paper and seemed to like the finished product.
They were much more excited to go outside. This is our ‘before’ picture …
and this is the group as we trudged off to a nearby clay pit.
Once there, the boys dug up clay to find out just how difficult it would be to work with. In our story Tabitha carried a water jug to Hebrews who were digging canals, so we decided to find out how easy it would be to dig through this muck all day – and what it’s like to then try to make something out of it.
We decided that it’s way more fun to play in than to work with seriously.
Nobody cared about trying to make jugs or mugs and went for simple spherical shapes instead.
Muddy though they may be, these orange fingers worked hard throughout this activity – and took away some neat truths, too.
And the ‘after’ picture. While not as muddy as I expected, I think they had fun getting dirty – though they’ll remember just how hard digging is when next they think of the Egyptian slaves.
What good books have you read lately?
This post was shared at I Can Teach My Child.
Book Club, Kids’ Edition: “Arthur & the Poetry Contest
This month both book clubs read Arther & The Poetry Contest. This simple chapter book is about the contest that Arthur and his friends start with a friend to decide who writes the best poetry – and the loser will have to join the poetry club for a whole year. A cartoon version of Jack Prelutzsky officiates the contest.
Poetry might not sound like much fun, but when you’re willing to be silly with it, it’s fantastic – and these kids were definitely willing to be silly.
The kids brought their favorite poetry to share – if they had any – and then we talked about a few different kinds of poetry. I read a few examples of each type, and then the kids wrote their own.
Some of them really got into this part. They illustrated and rhymed, and the girls even stood on the couch to read, while the rest of them sat in the ‘audience’ section of the floor and applauded after each poem.
The boys cared less about illustrating and more about being flat-out gross. I think they definitely win an award for this – but they worked hard at rhyming and were really creative, too. Everyone found something to write about and wrote a poem.
Then we made pudding. In the story the poetry contest entrants eat pudding as a snack, and so we made our own two ways – first from a boxed mix and then from scratch. Everyone wanted in on the whisking!
We decided that pudding was most exciting with toppings, so everyone brought his own and shared. Gummy bears and marshmallows make for very popular pudding toppings!
Then, of course, we sampled our work. The girls preferred to mix the homemade vanilla and boxed chocolate together …
While the boys mostly wanted to eat chocolate. Either way, I saw some awesome pudding creations.
And some pretty rockin’ poetry, too.
Are your kids fans of poetry?
Book Club, Girls’ Edition – Valentine’s Day with Jigsaw Jones
I’m a bit behind in sharing this book club event with you, but we had a great time exploring Jigsaw Jones’ Valentine Mystery together.
After discussing the book, we jumped right in to imitating it. We chose to make ransom note valentines, but we decided to make these to encourage others. We began by talking about abbreviations and language shortcuts, like ‘BFF’ for ‘best friends forever’ or ‘2’ for ‘to, too, two,’ and then they began. Armed with colorful paper, scissors, glue, and lots of magazines, the girls spent over an hour searching for just the right elements for their chosen messages. They really got into this!
Then it was time to celebrate this heart-shaped holiday with some Minute-to-Win-It style games. For the first challenge, the girls tried to stack candy hearts into the highest tower – Heart A-Stack. This turned out to be harder than it looked!
Next came the Heart Toss. Each girl stood back and tried to toss her candy hearts into small cups. My kitchen was soon covered in pastel hearts – and the giggling began.
I couldn’t get a clear shot of this game – nobody could hold still! Each girl licked her heart and stuck it right between her eyes, and then tried to wiggle her face and get the heart into her mouth. One girl managed to do it! Giggles were out in full force for this one – and afterwards, each time someone spied some leftover sugar still attached to a forehead.
This Chinese-style challenge really divided our group. It became very clear who loves to eat with chopsticks as the girls used either pencils or chopsticks to pick up the hearts and transfer them to their plates.
We had to make a simple snack, too, so we went with love bark. We melted some white chocolate, spread it on waxed paper, and stuck in some clean candy hearts.
In the end, we celebrated with some pink-and-purple snacks. The girls made floats with lemon-lime soda and raspberry sherbet and had fun drinking them out of colorful goblets. They munched on cookie bars with white chocolate chips and pink-and-purple sprinkles.
My Big Helper loves the color scheme of this holiday, and she had fun sharing it with her best friends.
What’s your favorite holiday book?
