book club

10 Adventure Stories for Elementary Readers

August 21, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

My kids love to read adventure stories, and I love how enthused they get about reading when they find a good one. There are also great lessons to be learned from adventure stories – lessons about being brave in the face of danger, of trusting God when the path is unknown, and of embracing new things, among others. There are the character-building lessons and literature ideas you learn from these books, too. So for the past month I’ve read lots and lots of kids’ books to find the perfect ones for our book club meetings and school plans. these yet, they should be added to your TBR pile immediately. 1. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein This story features middle-school characters but is I’ve tested out many more books than I’ve chosen, too, because I’m a picky reader, and I have high expectations for what my kids read. The following list includes my most favorite adventure stories for upper elementary readers, though, and if you haven’t read clean and fun. The characters are involved in a Survivor-like contest in a high-tech new library and must figure out an escape from a series of well-formulated clues to win an enormous price. 2. Capture the Flag by Kate Messner This is the first book in a trilogy about a secret society of people descended from the world’s greatest artists and whose mission it is to protect their ancestors’ work from those who seek to steal or destroy it. The main characters are three unlikely kids, all with different skills and talents, who work together to bring down some serious art thieves. 3. The Secret Island by Enid Blyton This is another first-in-a-series, this time about kids who are living in poor foster situations and decide to run away together to live on an island in the middle of a nearby lake. They build shelters, cook for themselves, store food for the winter, and otherwise survive on their own for months. It’s a great story of survival skills and working together. 4. The Island of Dr. Libris by Chris Grabenstein This Grabenstein book also features older characters and touts great literature. How real are the things we imagine? Can our imaginations fuel real change to our world? These themes are explored when the main character writes himself into many classic stories and barely escapes with his life over and over again. 5. The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone This first book, and the three that follow it, follow two kids through adventures through time, righting wrongs and learning about history. Their time travels are centered around the Sixty-Eight Rooms, a real exhibit in a Chicago museum. Find out how to turn this story into a real learning adventure here. 6. George Washington’s Socks by Elvira Woodruff I’ve always had a thing for time travel, as evidenced by several of these choices, but that’s because it’s a great vehicle for bringing the excitement of history alive. Woodruff does that in this story by sending a group of friends back in time to the night that Washington crossed the Delaware. In the melee, they are helped by Native Americans, run into Redcoats, are captured by Hessians, and rescued by Patriots. How much more excitement could you handle in one night?? 7. Honus and Me by Dan Gutman While time travel is my thing, sports are not – and yet I love this series. The main character, a tween boy, has the ability to travel through time with old baseball cards, and in each book of the series he travels to a different time and place, meeting the old greats and trying to correct wrongs – all while learning about the history of baseball. Of course, things never go as planned, and he’s captured by mobsters, lost without money, chased by angry managers, and much more. Find out how to turn this story into a real-life learning adventure here. 8. Edison’s Gold by Geoff Watson This is one of my son’s favorite books. When Thomas Edison’s a-bunch-of-greats-grandson learns of his ancestor’s secret discovery, he and his friends race to find and save it – before the competition destroys his family. With explosions, chase scenes, and neat science tricks, it’s a super fun story – and you’ll learn something, too. Find out how to turn this story into a real-life adventure here.

9. Missing on Superstition Mountain by Elise Broach This story, and the rest of the trilogy, explore the mysterious past of a real mountain range in Arizona. With legends abounding, as well as a race to find a lost gold mine, you won’t be able to put this series down.

10. Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett This story will make you think, as the author combines history, art, and philosophy – but she does so amidst the biggest art heist in history, and when some kids discover the trail to the thief, adventures fly. Find out more about how to turn this book into a learning adventure here.

Do your kids like adventure stories? Which are their favorites?

Book Club: “Mystery of Biltmore House”

June 24, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Book club took an interesting turn this month – a really BIG turn. A Biltmore-sized turn.

We read

The story is about a group of kids trying to solve a crime inside the famous Biltmore mansion. Several other locations around Asheville were also mentioned in the book, making this a great way to learn about the mountain region of North Carolina.

We started out by summarizing the story and discussing the characters’ actions, and there was a lot to talk about! Since gargoyles were described in detail by the author, we talked about the history of these stone carvings – about how true gargoyles have water shooting out of their mouths, and about how other statues are called grotesques.

Of course, after all of that talk about ugly, scary statues, we had to make our own.

I made a few batches of salt dough and gave each kid a ball of it. Some asked for drinking straws so that they could make them spit water.

The kids got really into their sculpting.

Didn’t they come out well?

Next the kids split into their book club teams – boys versus girls – to go on a nature scavenger hunt. They searched for all of the plants mentioned in the book, as well as some local wildflowers. My Big Helper was happy to find tulip poplars …

and all of the kids searched hard to find more plants than the other group. Each one was able to find several plants that were new to them!

Finally, we talked about the wide variety of rooms that can be found in Biltmore House and about some of the ways that it was ahead of its time technologically. Then the kids paired up to design their own dream homes. Some of them tried to make simple, large houses. The duo above, though, got all into it. They drew a house on wheels with a pool, vending machines that spit out their favorite foods, and staircases to the moon and the sun. They got really creative!

Book Club: “The Lemonade War” Boys vs. Girls

May 13, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

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This month we broke all the book club rules and declared war: The Lemonade War (The Lemonade War Series)“>The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, in which a brother and sister make a bet about who can earn the most money by holding lemonade stands during a five-day period. We took up the challenge.

The girls went first. They met in the morning to plan the details of their stand, including choosing a charity to which they could donate their profits. The girls chose St. Jude’s Research Hospital. They made posters, detailed plans for added value, good customer service, and how to make change. After that they ate a picnic lunch and packed up their gear.

We set up their stand at the local Tractor Supply store, where the generous manager had given permission for us to work outside. The girls stored their money in a toy cash register and traded jobs to experience all aspects of lemonade stand business.

The boys met this week. They followed the same routine as the girls, choosing Samaritan’s Purse/Nepal Earthquake Victims as their charity. The boys determined to raise more money than the girls – and just like in the book, the girls refused to divulge how much money they had.

The biggest difference between the two stands was the way that they handled themselves onsite. The girls were fairly reserved, while the boys were outgoing.

They even made posterboards and danced down the sidewalk with them.

In the end, the groups made more than $160 total for their charities – and I think they’ve learned a little bit about business and marketing, too.

Has your child ever run a lemonade stand?

For more business ideas, check out these great resources:

Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The Sixty-Eight Rooms”

April 22, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

When we first started this boys’ book club, I wondered if it would be hard to to get them to discuss a book in depth.

Now I know: it’s not – as long as you’re talking about a good book.

Apparently, The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone is a great book. The boys talked about it for nearly an hour. They had lots of questions and wanted to talk about many of the historical people and issues visited in this book (I’ve linked resources for these below.) A book doesn’t have to be non-fiction to introduce lots of factual information, and that is evident by this one. The kids wanted to know more about life in Plimoth Plantation, the settlement of New England, the Salem Witch Trials, and King Henry VIII, although the French Revolution was bandied about, too.

After a lot of historical discussion, we watched this video featuring images of rooms from this famous display in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Then we headed outdoors to build rooms out of shoeboxes.

Here the boys surprised me again. After seeing so many fancy European rooms in the video, we talked about the types of rooms we hadn’t seen – garages, barns, dens, stables, workshops, or anything very masculine, really. We talked about the many natural elements that they could find outdoors to use in their rooms, like sticks, stones, leaves, etc. We brought out scrapbooking paper, magazines, scissors, and glue, and gave the boys free rein.

Usually these kids can’t wait to go tearing around the yard looking for the perfect stick or stone – but today each of them worked strictly with paper.

They each chose a different perspective on the room and designed a different type of room – a pantry, a bedroom, etc – but in the end they all had interesting rooms to show.

Isn’t this chandelier and 3-D style bedroom cool?

Don’t underestimate your boys. Tug on the threads of history wherever you find them.

And be sure to read The Sixty-Eight Rooms with your kids. It’s well worth the read.

What are your kids reading right now?

Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “Callie’s Contest of Courage”

March 20, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

You know a kid likes something when he asks for more of it.

That’s how this month’s book club came about. My Little Man watched the girls have fun with Callie’s Contest of Courage (2)“>Callie’s Contest of Courage works well for boys. Callie may be a girl, but with a brother, boy cousins, and a good male friend in the picture, there are lots of male influences. With a dad serving in the military and a love of animals and adventure, Callie is a great character for any child to read.

Since My Little Man was so determined to do the same activities as the girls, we did – but with some important boy-friendly modifications. You can read about the girls’ event here and see which set might work best for you!

After summarizing and discussing the book, we talked about some basic photography techniques, like the Rule of Thirds and Perspective.

Then we set out to take some photos. The boys brought digital cameras along, and they were eager to find and capture their assignment: signs of spring. Since it was a warm and beautiful, sunny day, I thought they’d find many things to take pictures of, and they sure did!

Isn’t this cardinal feather beautiful?

They were especially fascinated by these frogs in the pond. There were at least three frogs, and maybe a snake. Whatever else it was, something had the frogs all worked up, and there was a lot of writhing and thrashing in the water. We stopped, watched, and took pictures for a long time!

Next we returned home for our pie-eating contest! The boys were all wound up about this and couldn’t wait to dig in. Although the girls chowed down in the kitchen, we decided to move this potential mess outside -and I was glad that I did!

I think My Little Man enjoyed wearing his pie more than eating it.

I think Check out these resources to get in the Callie mood!

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “The Wright 3”

March 6, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

Our book this month is a super exciting one, and it’s full of lesson possibilities, too! We read Chasing Vermeer“>Chasing Vermeer. This book continues the story of Calder and Petra as they try to stop the destruction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.

We started out by summarizing and discussing the story. There are lots of threads to pull in this one – issues about art, murder, friendship, honesty, and architecture – and we pulled them all.

Then we moved into the kitchen to bake one of Calder and Petra’s favorite snacks. They seem to eat a lot of cookies, often at the neighbor’s house while having tea, so the girls mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I baked them while they worked on the next project.

I wanted the girls to get a good feel for how different Wright’s architecture is and how special and custom he made it. Having visited Falling Waters years ago, I knew the great lengths to which Wright went to make his buildings visionary. We watched this YouTube video and tried to identify the locations in the book that happened in the house. The girls were really good at this!

Then we moved into the kitchen. The girls paired up and chose special locations. They tried to blend their unique places with a livable space, and they found that it wasn’t easy!

They had fun doing it, though, and I heard lots of giggles through the process. (Incidentally, my Big Helper hasn’t stopped drawing blueprints since!)

The Robie House was extremely unique for it’s time period, but it’s not the building that stands out the most to me. I think that Falling Waters does an even better job of merging the environment with the building (how much closer can you get than to be built overtop of a waterfall?) and so we also watched a video tour of that. Much of this video is computer-generated, but it does share the location extremely well.

Next we talked about the art glass windows that Wright designed specifically for the Robie House. I gave the girls some pattern blocks and asked them to think only about the shapes, not the colors, and to design a window quickly. The girls made some great designs on the fly!

Then it was time for the real thing. Using wooden sticks, plastic beads, and their own imaginations, the girls created their own faux art glass windows. Sorting the beads took a long time, as they were very small, but each girl successfully designed and made her own window – and the light shines through beautifully!

What are your kids reading right now?

Want more information about Wright and his work? Check out these books:

Book Club, Boys’ Edition: “The 100 Year-Old Secret” by Tracy Barrett

February 25, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

This month our boys’ book club read the same one as the girls: The 100 Year-Old Secret” by Tracy Barrett. That doesn’t mean that this club meeting was a duplicate of the other, though.

In fact, this is about as close as we’ve ever come to doing the same thing, and yet the way that we did it was quite different.

We started out by discussing the book – by summarizing it and comparing the characters’ actions to how we thought we might handle the situation.

Then I sent the boys outside to find things in nature with texture – that were dead.

They totally loved that assignment.

The boys couldn’t focus on their texture assignment until they darted off some energy, and they did that speedily – all over my yard. They ran everywhere. I’m sure that nobody would ever have guessed that it had rained for several days prior!

Eventually they got back to it, and then they found all sorts of things – dried grasses, sweet gum balls, dead leaves, stems, sticks, etc., and happily carried them into my house.

There I added to their collections with dried pasta and string. We gave them plates of glue and wide picture frames and told them to create textured, sculpted, artistic frames like the one that the famous painting was hung in in Barrett’s story. They got really into it.

As they finished, I took their frames outside and spray-painted them metallic gold. The boys loved that paint – and the fact that it turned my grass gold, too.

Then we talked about facial proportion – about how the tops of your eyes line up with the tops of your ears, etc., and I sent them off to make portraits of each other. The boys did surprisingly well – they got really into it and did some great work. I was very impressed! They drew with pencils and shaded and sketched for quite a while.

When they were finished, they snacked on ‘biscuits,’ English-style, before dashing back outside.

The boys moved at the speed of light, but they had some great thoughts about this story, and I couldn’t believe how detailed and careful their artwork was. They really took their time and put some effort into it. Maybe one of their portraits will be in a fancy frame someday!

What are your kids reading now?

Xena and Xander Holmes have just discovered they’re related to Sherlock Holmes and have inherited his unsolved casebook! The siblings set out to solve the cases their famous ancestor couldn’t, starting with the mystery of a prized painting that vanished more than a hundred years ago. Can two smart twenty-first-century kids succeed where Sherlock Holmes could not?

Modern technology meets the classic detective story in this terrific new mystery series that will intrigue young sleuths everywhere!

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “The 100-Year-Old Secret”

February 11, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

I love book club days, and this group of girls is always fun. This month was no exception as we delved into Edison’s Gold“>Edison’s Gold, which we had a blast working with last summer, but while that book focused heavily on the exciting aspects of history and science, this one centered around art and relationships.

There is lots of meat for discussion with this book. What is theft? Who owns art? Can missing art be recovered after a long period of time? To what lengths is it okay to go to find stolen goods?

After hashing out the answers to those questions, we headed into the kitchen to make a British treat. The book does take place in London, after all, and Zena and Zander often mention their confusion at the differences between American and British food names. We chose to make cinnamon scones, and the girls worked together to prepare the dough and get them oven ready.

While they were baking, we moved on to our next project. Knowing that picture frames were, at some points in history, nearly as much of a work of art as the painting or drawing they contained, we decided to build our own gilded frames, like the ones holding the infamous “Girl with the Purple Hat.” I pre-cut large cardboard frames, leaving wide edges so they could hold lots of texture. I put ditalini, spaghetti noodles, and old yarn on the table, as well as dishes of Elmer’s glue. The kids dipped these objects into the glue and then positioned them on the frames in patterns to create different textures. When they were finished, I spray-painted them to achieve a solid color frame with a ‘carved’ look.

When their frames were gilded, the girls moved onto portrait work. We talked about proportion and scale in faces and body figures, and then the girls chose a friend to paint. We set up easels with big paper and palettes of paint, and after sketching out their people with some light-colored chalk, they set to work.

After creating some super colorful portraits, we headed back into the kitchen to eat our scones. They were a hit – just like this book.

What are your kids reading now?

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “Paris” by Giada de Laurentiis

January 17, 2015 by Amy 2 Comments

I always look forward to book club events. I have a blast planning them and watching the kids learn and interact – but it’s been a long time since I anticipated a book event as much as this one. Why? Because

We read

After talking about the book, we started to prepare. We made chef’s hats out of poster board and tissue paper to get into the spirit of things. They came out really well!

I asked each child to bring a French bread and a French cheese to this event, so the next thing we did was to taste it all. I put small selections of each on platters on the table and asked each child to sample everything. (I forgot to take a picture before they sampled, but as you can see, they liked their choices and didn’t leave much behind.) We tried some wonderful new things: Smoked Gruyere, French sticks, boule, and more.

After that we teamed up for a Jeopardy-style game. The questions centered around the information found about France and French food from

When the girls were ready, they brought their creations over to the griddle I had preheated for them. I watched closely as they grilled their sandwiches. They worked together really well!

I sliced each sandwich into three pieces and distributed one to each girl. I passed out the rubrics, and we sampled them one at a time and then shared our opinion via rubric.

In the end, the girls were so excited about creating foods that they wanted to make more, so while they played around with a new French foodie creation, I added up all the points on the rubrics to determine the highest-scoring team. After sampling their latest creations – which were surprisingly yummy – I announced the winner (the open-faced sandwich team) and passed out their certificates.

We had a lot of fun cooking competitively. My Big Helper is already dreaming up her next creation. I can’t wait to sample it!

Don’t they look great in their hats?

Do you let your kids experiment in the kitchen?

Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “Isabel’s Secret”

December 17, 2014 by Amy 1 Comment

This month our girls read

I was very excited for the girls to dig in to

Each girl could take home two different items. We discussed the various heath benefits to coconut oil, beeswax, and essential oils, and then the girls whipped up a simple body butter. This pair went to town on one scent, while the other group chose a different one.

Next they each made their own variety of sugar scrub. They chose their ingredients and how rough they wanted it to be, and when they finished, we put their products in large baby food jars.

Afterwards, they designed labels for each jar and decorated them to give as a gift for Christmas. They ate some fudge we had prepared while they worked, because that was one of Holly and Isabel’s favorite treats! We wanted to make our own, but we knew there wouldn’t be time for that.

Lastly, the girls made fun placemats out of scrapbooking paper, stamps, and old Christmas cards. They had such a blast that My Little Man got in on the action after the girls went home. I love that we’ll have these personalized keepsakes for years to come.