Elsie's Bookclub and how to start one!

 Each week, Elsie meets with 4 of her friends on Zoom and discusses the book they've all been reading!  Besides it being fun for the girls, the moms enjoy it too because it encourages them to read and I put enough work into it that they can count as part of their literature credit if they homeschool- win, win!  I wanted to go ahead and lay out how I create the content for the book club so that if you are interested in having your child be a part of one, I've already done all the ground work as far as logistics are concerned.  

So, to get started, I begin by researching books that are either in the genre we are looking for, or that are typically on school required reading lists ( I also use this occasionally as well- https://www.sonlight.com/homeschool/subjects/readers.) I then narrow this list down by looking into the books that have audiobooks available as well as the hard copies.  I have found that this helps to accommodate anyone who needs the extra reading help to have the audio version as well.  Once I have a healthy list to choose from, I email that to all the parents who's children will be joining the club.  We have some back and forth about what everyone would prefer, and then I make the final picks. 

I typically will only pick 6-7 books for the year.  The past two years, we have had a list of 6 books, but met for 7 months because I chose a longer book for their last read so we split it up between the two last months of school.  I will then choose which books to read on which months.  Since we started, I have always skipped December.  So many things happen in the month of December, it just made sense to put that on the back burner.  We also skip the summer months for the same reason.

The next step for me is very similar to what I would do for any homeschool curriculum that we use.  I look at the total chapters for each book and split it up evenly (or as close as I can get) between the 4 weeks in each month.  I track all of this in a Word document on my laptop and send out the tentative schedule to parents.  

The next part of the process is usually the most time consuming.  I do read every book and create the questions for each one.  I typically do a question for each chapter of the book.  I try to create questions for the group to either put themselves in someone else's shoes, or for them to notice and start recognizing literary tools that authors use to write good stories.  I also like to ask a few simple opinion questions per book, but not as many of those as the other types of questions.  I also add follow-up work each week.  These are always some type of vocabulary practice, some type of art, and either a research or writing assignment.  I like to give the parents options as to what they have their child do as far as the follow-up work.  I like to have the leader of the discussion give each of the girls an opportunity to share any of their follow-up work with the group each week.  I will typically create the questions on a Sunday evening and then schedule the email to go out on Tuesday morning ( our group meets on Wednesday afternoons.)

As I mentioned before, we have our discussions on Zoom.  This makes meeting once a week so much easier and manageable then trying to get to a physical place when you're homeschooling!  I have the leader of the group (in this case, Elsie) create and schedule the Zoom and send out all the info to each of the girls.  I also have a group text with all the moms so I can send reminders, links, and ask any questions that I need input on from them.  I do really push Elsie to take the lead and make sure that everything is ready for the meeting each week.  

Some things that I've done that are fun options are to make bookmarks for the girls for each book.  I created a Word document with the title of each book, and which chapters they are supposed to read each week with the month we are reading it.  I pasted these onto pretty card stock and laminated them and then Elsie mailed them out to each of the girls.  Elsie and I also created a binder for all of her papers and I let her use her iPad to make a cover sheet for it.  

We have really enjoyed this group and have found that making a few adjustments here and there have helped make it a wonderful thing for everyone involved!  If you decide to try one, let me know how it goes!