While the entire book does not solely focus on this celebration, the Logroño family is able to celebrate an important holiday in the open with the rest of their community.  Leo and her family use face paint to create sugar skulls for the celebration.  

This activity used Google's Jamboard, which is an interactive white board.  Each participant was given a slide with a blank skull to decorate.  These are the sugar skulls (below) that the participants created.

Materials Needed:

• paper treat bags
• paper list
• pencils

Activity Description:
Before Minli leaves home she places these eleven items in her bag:

1. chopsticks
2. fishnet
3. needle
4. uncooked rice
5. copper coin
6. gourd
7. pot
8. water
9. dried bamboo
10. knife
11. rabbit rice bowl

If you were to leave home to change your family's fotune, what items would you take with you?  On your paper, write down the eleven items you would take with you and place your list inside of your bag.

When I say "fortune" get into (pairs or a group) to compare your lists.

I used the discussion questions from The Educator's Guide by LB School & Library

Materials: 

• Crayola watercolor paint pens
• Strathmore water color paper

Activity Description:
Participants will use the provided materials to create a watercolor dragon

For our icebreaker, I downloaded this Mad Lib from Teachers Pay Teachers and had everyone give me their suggestions for each field.  Then I did a dramatic reading of our Mad Lib.  

• Does the title, “A Properly Unhaunted Place” have any significance to the plot of the story?  Would you keep the title or change it to something else?  What would be your new title if you changed it?

• What do you think of the cover of “A Properly Unhaunted Place”?  How did you feel when you first saw the cover?  What did you think the story would be about? Does the cover reflect the story well?  Why or why not?

 

• How original and unique is “A Properly Unhaunted Place”?  Are there any books that you have read that are similar to this one?  Which ones?

 

• Would you want to work as an appeasement specialist and live in a library?  Why or why not?  What part of the job would you enjoy the most?  The least?

 

• What scene resonated most with you personally in either a positive or negative way? Why?

• What surprised you the most about the book?

 

• Which characters in the book did you like the best?  Why?  Which characters did you like the least?

 

• In the town of Ingot, their town history was a half-truth (in regards to Baron being a hero).  How did that impact the town?  Is it right to alter the facts of history?

 

• Did you find the ending satisfying?  If not, what would you change or add to the ending of the story?

 

• Mrs. Jillynip, the head librarian in Ingot, was fairly strict about the library.  How have libraries and librarians changed over the years?  

 

• There is a sequel to a “Properly Unhaunted Place” - do you plan on reading it?

 

• In some chapter books, the primary adults are removed from the storyline. Why do you think authors do this?  How would the book have been different if Rosa had both of her parents around to help her?

 

• Tell a friend - 1 thing that you liked about this book and 1 thing that you wished was different about the book.

 

• What time in history would you most like to travel to?

 

• This book has some artwork throughout (pp. 8, 28, 60, 108, 156, 171). Which illustrations did you spend the most time looking at?  Why?  Did the illustrations reflect what was happening in the story?  What other scenes from the book could have used an illustration?

 

• Rosa believes that spirits live in books.  When you read a book from the library do you think about the life that the book has had?  How so?  

 

• What genre does “A Properly Unhaunted Place” fall under?  Is this a genre you chose to read often?  Why or why not?

 

• What was one big lesson that you learned from reading this book?

 

• Which places in “A Properly Unhaunted Place” would you most like to visit?

 

• Does this book have Hollywood potential?  Can it be turned into a movie or TV show?  

 

• If you could speak with William Alexander, the author, what would you ask him?

 

• This book was selected for last year’s Battle of the Books.  What made this book Battle worthy?

 

• Rate this book.
  • 5 - worst book ever
  • 4 - disappointed 
  • 3 - meh
  • 2 - enjoyable
  • 1 - best book ever

 

• Thumbs up or thumbs down if you would recommend this book to a friend.

Sources for discussion questions:
Multnomah County Library "Talk It Up! Book Groups for Kids"

Scholastic "5 NEW Questions to Ask Kids About Books"

Book Riot "40 Great Book Club Discussion Questions for Any Book"

Book Bundlz "General Discussion Questions for ANY book"

I love everything that Krista creates and this activity is no different.  I had the participants build a "haunted library" and they really got into the activity (caregivers too).  

I divided our participants into two groups.  They had to answer questions about the book and answer the question correctly in order to be lead to the next question. The questions were hidden in different places within the Children's Department.  The last question lead them to the children's reference desk where they were given a cryptogram puzzle to solve.  Once they solved the puzzle they could choose a "Top Secret" note pad or pencil as their prize.

Part of being an excellent detective/spy is being able to come up with amazing disguises.  I set-up a mini photo booth, my personal puppet stash, photo booth props from Target, and an iPad for The Crew to snap photos.  These are pictures that the kids took.  

I used crepe paper to create the obstacle course.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to squeeze, bend, and wiggle their way through this "laser" obstacle course.

We used a Padlet to talk about two questions: What is it like when you are the first to do something?  and Why is it important to have a support system?

I found the coolest downloadable resource called "Space STEM Challenges" from Kim Carroll on Teachers Pay Teachers.  It had lots of great activities that I just had to print off.  It was a huge time saver and I am so glad that I will be able to use some of the activities again in our Makerspace.  

​I also bought some badges from Amazon and made NASA badges for the kids to wear.

I created the badges on PicMonkey with graphics from Pixabay and Clipart Library.

Since we had a late start (thanks to the snowprise), we did not get to do the discussion game.  I planned to break everyone into 4 groups.  Each group would recieve a question card.  They would answer the question and bring the card to me.  If the answer was correct, I would give them a part of a unicorn and their next question.  I found a neat unicorn puppet printable from Arty Crafty Kids (you have to sign up to get the free unicorn puppet).

Marigold zapped off Dakota's hair which means The Crew has an opportunity to design a new look for Dakota!  I tried my best to free-hand Dakota and copied her likeness onto cardstock.  The Crew members gave Dakota a Pom Pom hair-do, a Rapunzel inspired hair-do, and a polka dot hair-do.

I recently attended a training given by one of my amazing colleagues about book discussions and she inspired me to add a new component to Book and Cookie Club - “Book Talk”.  I set aside 5 minutes for the Crew to share their thoughts on the book. I created some Google Slides that posed some questions: “How would you rate this book?”, “What did you like about this book?”, and “Would you recommend this book to a friend?”  

For the longest time, I was not sure how to approach discussing and evaluating the books that we read for Book and Cookie because I did not want it to feel like school.  I wanted to maintain the fun atmosphere that I established and was not sure how to tackle evaluating the books.
​
After my colleague's inspiring workshop, I decided that there was a way for me to have The Crew evaluate the books and that there was a fun way to do it.  I thought of the three questions I wanted The Crew to answer then I browsed Giphy for inspiration.

I am happy to report that The Crew had a lot of fun sharing their thoughts on the book and our first “Book Talk” was a big hit.  The Crew had some really great thoughts and opinions on the book and we even extended our “Book Talk” by sharing what book characters we would love to meet in real life.  

Click here to see the slideshow I created for "Book Talk" (includes GIFs & questions)

Originally, I was going to make a Kahoot, but it was finals week at the high school and our WiFi needed a bit of a break.  I decided to create a Jeopardy-style game but with a twist.

I purchased one of those science fair cardboard tri-folds and covered it with Kraft paper. I printed the spell book clipart from Krista Wallden onto brown construction paper to create “flaps” that I could lift up to reveal questions about the book.
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I divided the room into two teams - “Billy Goats Gruff” vs. “Three Musketeers.”

Each team selected a captain and the captains picked the questions they would like to answer - i.e. L 20.

We played until we ran out of questions.

I provided books and various art materials for The Crew so that they could design new book covers that would be displayed in the library.

I made some examples of redesigned book covers and wrote up explanations of how I went about designing the new cover.  I used PicMonkey with the help of graphics from Pixabay to help me create my redesigned book cover examples.

We also discussed how the editors of a publishing company will select the cover art that goes on a book.  It is not common for an author to have input on what gets put on the cover of their book. This led to a good discussion of judging books by their covers and how that sometimes the best books have the worst covers.
​
If I were to do this activity again, I would do a few things differently.  I would have The Crew go out and select a book they have already read, I would give them more time to work on their designs, and provide laptops for those that wish to design their covers digitally.

Click here to see my plans for this month’s Book and Cookie and the station signs for the different activities.

Our first book of 2019 will be “Phoebe and Her Unicorn: A Heavenly Nostrils Chronicle” by Dana Simpson.  I cannot wait! 

Our book for this month was Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

The Crew came up with their Book Scavenger name using the formula on the “What’s Your Book Scavenger Name” sheet.  The Crew found the first letter of their first name and the first letter of their last name on the grid to get their Book Scavenger name.

The Crew worked in groups of 3-4 to answer questions, solve puzzles, ciphers, magic squares, decode secret messages & more!  Their goal was to locate books that were disguised in bookstumes and hidden around the children's department.

I made a word find with all of the items that Minli packed into her bag before she left to find the Old Man of the Moon.  I used this Word Search Maker on The Teacher's Corner to generate the wordsearch.

I borrowed this game from my boss.  We played it at one of our department meetings this past winter.   It’s pretty low prep and the results are hilarious.

Participants are given a paper plate and a marker.  Have the participants place the paper plate on top of their head.  Remind participants that the plate must stay on their head until the activity is complete.

For an extra challenge, you can have participants use their non-dominant hand to draw!

As participants hold the paper plate on their head, tell them to draw the following:

• A flower in some grass
• To the left of the flower, draw a bunny rabbit
• A sun in the sky
• To the right of the flower, draw a squirrel climbing a tree
• Draw some birds in the sky
• Draw a ladybug on top of the flower
• Give the sun a pair of sunglasses
• Draw some clouds in the sky

Participants can take their plate off from the top of their head and look at their remarkably hilarious art!

All of our station activities honored a character from Upside Down Magic.

​I planned a game of “catch the dragon” where I would place the dragon in the middle of the room.  I would ask a question about the book, and the first person to grab the dragon could answer the question.

However, we never got to the game because everyone had so much fun trying out the different stations.

During the summer I like to make goodie bags for Book and Cookie Club.  The bags have activities and items that are themed around the next month's book.   Next month, we will be reading and discussing Extra Credit by Andrew Clements.  Since it will be August and the 2018-2019 school year is almost upon us, I wanted to have some items that the Crew could use at school!

This is what went in the bags for this month:

• Naperville Public Library Pens 
• Assorted Stickers
• Emoji Post-It Notes 
• Letter writing bundle/snail mail activity:
  
  • envelopes (2/bag),
    
  • blank postcards (2/bag)
    
  • blank index cards (2/bag)
• granola bar recipe 
• pocket poems 
• nature scavenger hunt activity