- 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!
homeschool
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: “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, 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?
Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “Understood Betsy”
When I was a little girl my grandmother gave me a copy of “Understood Betsy” by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. As winter approached and we began to make plans for our January book club, I knew this was the perfect choice.
Understood Betsy is the story of Elizabeth Ann, a young girl who is being raised by her maiden aunts – at least, she was until one of the aunts takes sick and needs to go to a warmer climate to recover. Elizabeth Ann is sent to live with other relatives nearby, and when their circumstances change, as well, she is shipped off via train to live with those Putney cousins in Vermont. On this mountainous Vermont farm, Elizabeth Ann begins to think for herself – and has all sorts of adventures.
Undestood Betsy is a fantastic story – one you’ll want to read again and again. We had a great time celebrating this book Betsy-style – and we hope you will, too.
After talking about the book, we built a fire with a flint and steel. Since there was a polar vortex happening outside our Southern home, this was quite appropriate, and we appreciated the warmth of the fire. It made our meeting extra special to be cozied up to the fireplace!
Next we made butter from cream. None of the other girls had done this before, and they quickly got tired of shaking the jar.
They appreciated the finished product, though, and enjoyed squeezing out the buttermilk like Betsy did, although they didn’t like the taste of the buttermilk!
Since we weren’t sugaring, and it wasn’t snowing, there wasn’t an easy way to recreate Betsy’s waxing of the maple syrup in the snow. I did learn a few things about New England and maple syrup from visiting my grandmother as a kid, though, and so we churned our own vanilla ice cream. While the churn was going, we did a blind taste test of real maple syrup and a fast food restaurant’s syrup. (The real stuff was identified by nearly every child by appearance alone, and every single one choose it in the taste test.) After our ice cream was ready, we topped it with maple syrup, New England-style, and headed back to the fire for our snack.
In the book, Betsy and her friends make a new outfit for a little boy in the hopes of helping him get adopted. While we’ve taking on several simple sewing projects, I opted not to try to make pants. Instead, we knotted scarves for a scarf mission in Scituate, Massachusetts.
When each girl finished making her scarf, she decorated a simple card to go with it. They were really creative with these!
We had a great time celebrating Understood Betsy style, and we really packed a lot into the few hours that we had. This is the perfect winter book – and since it takes place about a hundred years ago, there are many skills to practice throughout the reading.
Have you read Understood Betsy?
Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “The Smuggler’s Treasure” An American Girl Mystery
It’s book club time again! We ate well this month after reading The Smuggler’s Treasure, an American Girl History Mystery set in New Orleans during the War of 1812.
I had the chance to visit New Orleans a few years ago – back before Katrina – and so we talked about the culture and what makes the city unique – the Cajun culture, the heat and humidity, the architecture – and then we talked about the food. Food is always fun to talk about, but especially when the book you’ve read is set in a bakery!
Our club meeting just happened to be scheduled for Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday, and while that wasn’t mentioned in the book, beignets were – and since I come from an area where doughnuts are the traditional way to fry the fat and sugar out of your cupboards before Lent, we decided to do the same.
First we got our dough ready. Beignets use yeast, so we talked about the science of how yeast makes bread rise as we watched it wake up and act. The girls seemed to think that was pretty cool.
When the dough was ready, we rolled it out and used a pizza cutter to shape the squares. I wasn’t sure we’d have enough at this point, because we really wanted to be able to share outside the club, so we started on another batch.
Then we moved them to a tray so we could roll and slice the second batch …
and while all of the dough was rising, we headed off to talk future careers. The main characters of our story were torn – one wanted to run the bakery someday, while the other wanted a different life. After the girls each shared their dreams for their own future, they thought about how they would market their bakery – if they had one. Each girl came up with a name and logo for her bakery – except for these three. They decided to work together and did the project jointly.
Next it was time to fry the beignets. The girls watched from a safe distance, and then after they drained, we dropped three into their bags on top of a small pile of powdered sugar, just as they’re served in Cafe du Monde now.
Then it was time to do the happy beignet dance and shake that sugar all over the hot pastries! My Little Man couldn’t bear to be left out of this fun, so he grabbed a bag, designed his own logo, and hopped in line.
The girls polished off these beignets and some wanted more, so we tried them in the more traditional Amish style, dusted with regular sugar:
Both were great. This was definitely a fun way to bring a bit of New Orleans’ culture into book club – and it’s one we’ll be repeating again.
What are your kids reading now?
Bring the culture of New Orleans to your event with these fun products:
