Elementary book clubs meet monthly and for 3 consecutive months, we focus on the same series.
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.
