Tween Book Club Adventures

I have been running a very fun and popular Tween Book Club since March.  The tween book club meets once a month to discuss a book/graphic novel they read the month before.  This summer I decided to shake things up by having a Book 2 Movie club once a month in the afternoon.  It was a HUGE success! 

Due to time constraints, the tween book club not able to watch the movie. Instead, I picked two very popular book-to-movie choices for June and July and planned several activities around them. 

June - HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON by Cressida Cowell

The movie How to Train your Dragon 2 came out the day before the book club meeting. I convinced a generous local movie theater to give me four free  opening weekend tickets.  I then devised a book vs. movie trivia quiz to challenge the club’s dragon training knowledge while we noshed on pizza.  There were some hard core dragon fans in attendance.  This contest was very competitive and fun!

Next, I broke out the library’s two huge plastic tubs of donated Legos.  We sat in a circle on the floor while building Lego dragons.  The kids came up with their own creative dragon names and dragon training stories while we were building.

July – THE LIGHTNING THIEF by Rick Riordan

June’s book club was a little chaotic due to the high number of people in attendance (96!).  I decided to approach July’s book club a little differently.  I broke the book activities into stations and allowed the kids to rotate through at their own pace.  Each station generated many awesome book/movie discussions.

Station 1: Book vs. Movie Trivia- This one was easy!  There are so many differences between the book and the movie.  The Camp Half-Blood Wiki has a comprehensive list to draw from:   http://camphalfblood.wikia.com/wiki/Percy_Jackson_and_the_Olympians:_The_Lightning_Thief/Differences_from_the_book .

Station 2: Camp Half-Blood Archery – I set up the Wii on our large television.  The kids had a blast taking turns playing Wii Resort archery.

Station 3: Shield Making -  I borrowed this idea form the KC Edventures Blog:  http://www.kcedventures.com/blog/percy-jackson-movie-birthday-party .  To keep costs down, I purchased inexpensive cardboard cake rounds instead of pizza pans to make the shields. I placed various craft supplies such as markers, crayons, glitter, construction paper, etc. out on the table and let the kids go to town.   This was by far the most popular and creatively awesome station!

Station 4: Greek Mythology Go-Fish- A free printable game can be found here: http://bogglesworldesl.com/greekmyths_flashcards.htm

Station 5: Write Your Name in Greek -  The Percy Jackson Event Kit on Rick Riordan’s website has a English to Greek letter translation chart: http://www.rickriordan.com/Files/Documents/event_kit_riordan.doc. I tacked this chart up next to a white board and put out some whiteboard markers.  The kids all took turns translating their names into Greek.   Some of them even put their Greek name on their newly created shield.

The End-

I always try to save five to ten minutes at the end of the book club to book-talk and pass out the next book.  Do you run a Tween Book Club at your library?  I’d love to hear about your experiences!