1-3 Grade Book Club

At the request of my supervisor I am running a book club for 1-3 graders. The first time I heard this request nervous did not begin to describe my attitude. Not only had I never run a book club, but I had never even attended a book club. And for 1-3 graders? Surely this age range was a little young for something like a book group.

I began preparing. Reading everything I could find, talking to the librarian here who'd done a test run, and visiting another branch with a very successful book club for this age group. I (unnecessarily) stretched the planning process out and the concept changed at least once. The first month I only had three girls show up. Still, it was a success because they actually seemed to have fun, and even better, so did I.

The fourth session met last Friday. I had about 8 kids (half the number who registered). Of these 8, about half were new and half were returnees. So it seems I'm slowly building a loyal group. Hopefully, this will continue.

Anyway, this month we read Frog and Toad are Friends. The questions I ask are all very low key, with no right or wrong answer (usually). I try to get the kids to think about what they've read. Though, as I said, this is very low key.

Then we move in to a couple of games or activities. I've done reader's theaters, underpants flings, and pin the flower on Amelia Bedelia's hat. This month we played a button game, wherein the kids had to find hidden buttons and try to match the one in my pocket. The second round of this went better than the first, they actually listened to the clues and helped each other out. Yay!

So, I didn't want to do this book club, rather I was very hesitant about it. Now I love it. I love what I'm learning from the kids about how they read and relate to books and each other and even me. I look forward to experimenting and seeing how I can make the program grow.