Brown Bag Book Club

Years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Linda Holliman workshop. It.was.AWESOME!! She is such a hoot and her ideas are SO inspiring!!! While she was explaining a few different ideas to us, one of them really got my attention. She talked about how her kids would complete a readers/listening response on a lunch bag and then she’d fill the bags with popcorn and have the kids partner up and share what they wrote. I LOVED that idea!!! Since I’m such a big fan of book clubs, I decided to incorporate this idea and turn it into a book club…hence the birth of the “Brown Bag Book Club”. Y’all…my kids are OBSESSED. And I gotta say…I’m LOVIN’ it, too!!!

Here’s a little peek at this week’s Brown Bag Book Club…our first of the year!!

So here’s how the book club works…

Choose a story to read at the beginning of the week. This week, we read The Mitten. {We did a few whole group reader’s responses throughout the week…venn diagram, flow chart, story elements, etc.} At some point during the week, have the kids fill out a graphic organizer/thinking map and glue it to a brown paper bag {lunch sack}. I had my kids fill out a graphic organizer focusing on characters, setting, main idea, and author’s purpose. Any kind of graphic organizer/thinking map/response to reading will do!

The kids held on to their paper bags until this afternoon {Friday}. We ended up having an odd number of kids in the class today, so I grouped the kids into 3’s. We talked about book clubs and their purpose…the kids were SO on board! As I was passing out the popcorn for their bags, I had the kids talk to their groups about whether or not they liked the book, why, and what part of the book was their favorite. I heard some GOOD discussions!

Once they had their popcorn, Brown Bag Book Club was in session! I used these questions to guide discussion…

I gave the kids about 3-5 minutes to discuss each question and then have one group share their thoughts. They were SO into it! I couldn’t believe how well the discussions really went. It was so fun to hear my kids really “dissect” the book. Of course, the popcorn pick-me-up really helped, too :)

I plan on having the Brown Bag Book Club meet every Friday afternoon. I’ll use a different set of guiding questions every week {depending on the book} and the graphic organizer will change, too! I think we’ll be using a beginning/middle/end graphic organizer this week because that’s one of our week’s objectives. And I’ll always serve popcorn! The kids just LOVE it!!!

This might be my most favorite Friday activity!!! It’s an awesome way to end the week and the kids get SO into it all. I HIGHLY recommend starting a book club of your own!! And if you do start one, let me know!!! I’d LOVE to hear how yours is organized!!