Kids Book Club Ideas!

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This might be new information for many of you- but I run a book club! This book club has boys and girls from early elementary through early middle school and wow, it can be a lot! But it is so fun and they love it.

They love hands-on crafts and activities, as well as games that get them up and moving around. We meet once a month and I try to make everything as engaging and fun as I can!

The book we read and discussed for October was called Heartwood Hotel: A True Home by Kallie George, the first book in the Heartwood Hotel series. This book was the absolute cutest! The main character is Mona the mouse, who stumbled upon the Heartwood Hotel and became just the maid they needed. This book covers many great values for young children such as kindness, love, and the meaning of home . . . not to mention the many adorable illustrations scattered throughout!

The kids had a great time at book club! For this post, I decided I would include the basics of our meeting, in case you would ever like to use them!

Snacks

The kids always look forward to snacks during discussion! For this meeting we had pretzel sticks (and told them they were branches) and apple slices!

Discussion

We like to have an open-ended discussion, so I deliberately do not take pre-prepared questions since I know the kids will naturally take the conversation in the direction they are most interested in. However, here are some questions that can be applied to any book:

Who is your favorite character and why? How does the character change throughout the story?

What is your favorite part of the book? Why is this part important?

Is there any part of the book you would want to change? What would you like to happen differently?

Was the ending what you expected? Why or why not?

Activity/craft

Supplies:

1. Mini animal figurines
2. ‘Moss’
3. Paper plate to be the base
4. Natural items and craft supplies like pebbles, rocks, feathers, buttons, cardboard, or construction paper.

This activity is fun for them because it calls for imagination and creativity. Give them time to create their own ‘Heartwood Hotel’, encouraging and reminding that there is no right or wrong. Just be creative!

Game

They always love the games! For this particular book, they were acting as ‘room service’! I had small things like pebbles and pinecones on a paper plate and they had to run to a tree and back, then pass it on to the next person on their relay team. If they dropped anything, they had to start over. This was fun for them because of the friendly competition and simplicity of the race.

I hope this gave you some fun ideas; maybe you can start your own book club!