February Book and Cookie Club: El Deafo

Book & Cookie Club is a one hour long book discussion for students in 3rd through 5th grade and their adult caregivers.  I have been facilitating this program since December of 2015.  It is one of my favorite programs because I get to come up with new activities, icebreakers, and discussion games every month!

THE BOOK

This month we read El Deafo by Cece Bell.  I thought that it was time for us to read another graphic novel.  I try to change the genre and format as often as I can because I want my Book & Cookie Club Crew to have the opportunity to read books featuring different genres, styles of writing, characters, and viewpoints.  I know that I have my favorite genres (fantasy, more fantasy, and even more fantasy) which means this program gets me to read outside of my comfort zone!

I have included a PDF to a list of all of the titles we have read in Book & Cookie Club!

book_and_cookie_club_titles.pdf
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THE PLAN

Our Icebreaker for this month was "A Big Wind Blows."  I found the idea for this icebreaker on The Drama Notebook.  When I was writing up my plans, I decided to have a premade list for this activity so that I could keep the pace and the engery high for this icebreaker.

I went high tech with our discussion game this month!  I created a Kahoot! and used six of our circulating iPads for everyone to play in Team Mode.  Click here to check out my Kahoot!

If you are interested in seeing how I planned for Book and Cookie Club this month, click here for my plans.

Our book related activities this month consisted of three stations: DIY Warm Fuzzies, Graphic Novel 101, and Designer Ears.

The Warm Fuzzy station was a hit.  I discovered these glittery Pom Poms in our program room craft supply stash and knew they would be a good choice.  My Book & Cookie Crew decided the blue ones were "cold pricklies."  There were some warm fuzzies with wings and even some mutant warm fuzzies!

The Graphic Novels 101 Station.  This was a very popular area!  I found some amazing graphic novel templates on Teachers Pay Teachers and printed them off.  I put several of our drawing books on display for the kids & caregivers to use.  There were short graphic novellas about Star Wars, unicorns, and tests!

I was hoping to use the SoundExploratorium app, but it appears that they have discontinued it (sad panda).  I wanted to do a science based activity with hearing and found this one called "Designer Ears" on the Exploratorium website.  

Next month we will be discussing What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World by Henry Clark.  We will also have a surprise guest joining us that evening - my mom!