Book club

I have to admit I love being part of a good book club.  I love reading books that are out of the regular genre of books I would normally read for fun and the discussion with the other members after is always great.  This post is not about an adult book club though, it's about a book club for toddlers.

Joshie had a few good friends who are all almost the same age (within a few months of each other). Last month we hosted our first book club meeting together.  A book club for kids how fun! We chose Joshua's favorite book at the moment which is the very hungry caterpillar and organized our little play date around that.  Really it was quite simple and kept the kids interested because they are all at the same stage.  

The kids book club can really be broken down into a few parts:

Reading the Story

This is self explanatory.  You just sit down with the kids and read them the story.  At this stage there is a lot of shouting out during the story, touching the book and just wandering around but hey that's how it is for a two year old.

Activity

I had been wanting to make a felt board for quite some time.  I took a long time contemplating about making an actual board or re-purposing something we already had.  What I finally decided on was creating a flannel board that can attach to one side of the easel but can fold away easily when we aren't using it.  I made felt pieces for all the things the caterpillar ate in the story and then each toddler took turns putting items on our felt board while we read the story.  It was really quite easy to do and I wish I would have done it earlier because the board is now used on a daily basis.  I am looking forward to making more felt learning tools and story accessories to use on our board.

Craft

Two year olds are not great at making elaborate crafts so I decided to go quite simple.  I pre-cut out all the pieces out of construction paper to make very hungry caterpillar hats.  I had very hungry caterpillar stickers that they all stuck onto paper that I had pre-cut as well.  When they were done, we just used tape to attach the pieces wherever they wanted and help them put together their hats.

Snack

What is a playdate without a snack?  A way to get a toddlers attention is definitely through food!  For a quick snack, I just cut up a few things that the caterpillar ate in the story.  The kids really enjoyed it.

This activity is really easy to do when all the kids are super close in age because then they are developmentally at the same stage.  The activities that we chose were geared solely towards a two year old.  It would be neat to revisit this same play date in another year or so and see how much the activities would differ because of the ability levels and developmental stages of the kids.

Once a month we will rotate hosting duties and meet for one of their favorite books.  A great outing for the kids and I have to admit, I enjoyed the kids and mom company as well :)