Every month I facilitate a book club for students in 3rd - 5th grade.  This program is designed to be a caregiver and child book discussion group.  I plan activities and games based on the book that we read.  B&C Club is one of my favorite programs and I love the challenge of creating new activities and games each month for The Crew (my nickname for my B&C Club participants) to enjoy.

​My plan for this month's B&C Club can be accessed by clicking here.

I decided that it would be great fun for The Crew to create their own Medieval Name for the evening. 

I made this Medieval Name generator graphic using PicMonkey and found some name inspiration on Storm the Castle.  As I was creating this graphic, I realized that I only had so much space to work with so I opted for gender neutral names.  I also picked out some Jousting horse names for some of the surnames because I found it amusing.

I purchased the clipart for this collage from the amazing Krista Wallden of Creative Clips.

I thought it would be fun to have The Crew match British terms and slang to pictures that I mounted on foam core.  This was such a fun icebreaker because it got everyone to work together!

The Crew was divided into two teams for this game.  Each team took turns answering questions from the book.  If they answered the question correctly, they were given the card the question was written on and used the card as a "block" to build their castle.  To win the game, a team had to earn 20 blocks and have a castle that had 2 towers.  It was a close race, but Unicorn Castle was victorious!

This was one of the most popular activities of the evening.  For this activity, The Crew drew a design on glossy photo paper with Sharpie markers.  When they were finished drawing and coloring their design, they outlined the shapes of their design with a black marker. I actually had this photo paper lying around my house, so I didn't have to buy any #score!  The idea for this activity came from Happy Hooligans blog.

This is a really cool STEM and team building activity that I found on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I plan on trotting this activity out again during the school year for our Makerspace.  The supplies are super simple and cheap - a ruler and index cards.  I added cups for an additional challenge.

I pulled some magic books from our nonfiction section and marked the easiest tricks (and the ones I had the supplies for) with a post-it note.  Some of the members of The Crew were excited to try out the tricks they learned on their friends and siblings.

We are trying to promote our awesome nonfiction books via display carts for special programs.  Our nonfiction section is tucked away in the very back corner of our department, so the books back there can get a bit neglected.  I thought it would be fun to pull some books that related to various themes and topics in Castle in the Attic. I pulled books on castles, knights, jokes, and riddles.

Reading this book made me nostalgic for the time that I studied abroad in England (back in 2009).  I had the opportunity to student teach in an English primary school.  The best part of the day was tea time.  All of the kids would go out to recess where they were supervised by parent volunteers. All of the teachers would head into the lounge for tea, biscuits, and cakes.  I'm food oriented, so it's safe to say that this was my favorite part of the day.

​I decided to order my favorite biscuit for The Crew to try.  Unfortunately, Amazon was out of stock on the chocolate covered Digestives so I had to get the plain ones.  I'm not complaining though, I get to enjoy some biscuits with my tea.

Our family storytime basket this week was Father's Day themed.  I wanted to share books that showed male caregivers playing, cooking, talking, reading, etc.   I did share one book that was Father's Day related, but the rest were centered around the daily activities of a male caregiver and the child in their care.

Since I am all about full disclosure on this blog -- I plumb forgot that I was due to facilitate storytime this week (#SummerReadingBrain) so I didn't have time to look for some books about uncles and grandpas!  

When I introduce the letter of the week I like to ask the participants if they recognize the letter.  I had the kiddos practice making the sound of the letter F. 

​Then we drew the letter F in the air.  When I do this activity, I like to have the kids draw a big square in the air and I like to tell them that is their paper. 

fter we drew the letter of the week, we talked about the pictures in the collage.  As we talked about the pictures we made frog and fly sounds and I had kids raise their hands if they like french fries.

We have been toting a cart of books to storytime so participants can grab a book (or ten), check them out, and head home. 

I thought it would be a good idea to display some of the books on a table instead of the cart so that there won't be a large mob around the tiny book cart after storytime.

The option of grab & go books on the cart and table have been a crowd pleaser.  An added bonus is that we have managed to give our circulation stats a little baby boost!  Score!

I have my very own puppet stash. I am slowly reaching the point where I may need a larger bin for said puppet stash because it keeps growing! I was recently gifted this fuzzy fluffy monkey (on the left). My mother in law was doing some spring cleaning and found this lil' fella. He used to belong to my husband, MLaw, back in the day. Which makes this guy extra special. I love greeting the kiddos as they come into storytime with a puppet. Today was Pico's storytime debut! He recieved a warm reception! Yay, Pico!

Today's storytime theme was all about courage and bravery.  My colleague that assembled the basket and selected this week's theme recently introduced me to the work of Dr. Brené Brown.  

I have been watching Dr. Brown's videos (see the end of this post for my favorite video) and plan on reading ALL of her books because her research and writing on the topics of shame, empathy, connection, and courage are extremely thought-provoking and powerful.

"Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” ~ Dr. ​Brené Brown

To the tune of: Jolly Good Fellow
We’ll wave hello together,
We’ll wave hello together,
We’ll wave hello together,
Because it’s fun to do.

We’ll give a hug together,
We’ll give a hug together,
We’ll give a hug together,
Because it’s kind to do.

We’ll high five together,
We’ll high five together,
We’ll high five together,
Because it’s fun to do.

After I introduced the letter of the week, we drew the letter B in the air.  Then, we talked about each of the pictures in the collage.  

*Note: The video is the lapsit version of this song.

For older children, I like to use: dance, wiggle, tip-toe, stomp, jump, bend (I like to have them cross the midline with their arms when bending), and twist.

A PDF of a list of movement verbs is down below.

"Smart Unique Special", "Born to Win", and "It's a Happy Day"