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.
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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.
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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.