Each meeting follows the same format: Discussion, small activity, big activity.

 This is what we did for our first Dog Man book club meeting!

 As kids came in, they wrote their names on a piece of paper and dropped it into Chief's hat. 

Dog Man's doghouse from this picture was made with cardboard and covered in construction paper. 

Chief's hat is a peanut can cleaned out and wrapped in construction paper. 

Everyone got a half sheet handout of what we were about to do. This is front and back of meeting 1.

We began with discussion. For the meeting, everyone was encouraged to choose 1 discussion question. Names were pulled from Chief's hat and whoever's name was pulled, shared their question and answer. 

Since then, this portion has evolved so there is a small list of discussion questions and we go down the list and talk about them. That way, no one is put on the spot. I want the kids to know what's coming so that this isn't a stressful experience for the shy ones. 

NEXT WE . . .

After our discussion, I shared an easy Sudoku puzzle with them. I showed them how they were solved and as a group, we solved 2 puzzles. 

There were then 2 more puzzles for them to try on their own.

Once those were completed and I was confident that everyone knew how to complete a sudoku puzzle, we moved onto our next activity.

THEN . . . 

The main activity was to complete a sudoku puzzle but instead of numbers, I used DogMan characters. 

Where did this idea come from? I DON'T KNOW!? I credit my coworker who has gotten me hooked on reading the newspaper which has weekly Sudoku puzzles. Somehow this combination just appeared in my brain. 

I had made 2 different sets envelopes - one envelope for each puzzle.Each envelope was labeled "Puzzle #1" and "Puzzle #2".

There were 16 envelopes of each puzzle (that was the amount of kids I was planning for). 

Puzzle #1 envelopes were hidden together in the library while all Puzzle #2 envelopes were hidden together in a separate location.

Kids were sent out on a quick Scavenger Hunt to retrieve these envelopes with instructions to return to our meeting area once they had both #1 and #2. 

Upon their return, I gave them the page with their puzzle for them to solve. Their pieces were then glued down. 

Meeting 1 was over.