Hi All

A few of us met this afternoon to discuss our groups and how things were going with the book club, in general. Overall, the opinion is that children seem to be excited and getting more interested in reading. However, some groups are more focused than others.

Sara's group is very motivated and focused. She mentioned that the kids had chosen roles for themselves and were enacting even as they read their lines - this, before she arrived at the session. Way to go!

The treasure hunt I had set up for my group during the last session went well, in that it got the kids excited. But it disrupted the reading quite a bit during the second half. They were more interested in finding the clues than reading the book to answer the clue questions. They were running around the class-room distracting Tia's group. Sorry! I thought it was a good idea, but...

Tia has had similar issues (not just during the last session:). Dagny also mentioned loss-of-focus as a problem and kids getting distracted when they had to listen to someone read. Zoraida and Anna seem to have had similar situations - not always though.

We thought it may be a good idea to ask Carrie if she could talk to the kids about this. I have sent her an e-mail, which I have forwarded to all of you. I have also mentioned the issue of misplaced books in the e-mail.

If you have any other comments or suggestions, please do post here or send an e-mail. Any and all feedback would be very useful.

Thanks

viji

Plan for this week - March 6th, 2009

Hi

The book my group has been reading is a mystery story (A to Z Mysteries) in which some kids go in search of counterfeiters. I had given them copies of the book at the end of the last session for them to finish reading at home. I am hoping they have had the time to do so. I was planning to set up a treasure hunt/mystery solving kind of game for the session this Friday. Clues are going to be based on questions about the book and the treasure will be fake money (as in the book). I am wondering when I can go in and place the clues inside the class room and how - without the kids knowing. Any suggestions - on the idea itself or on the planting of clues?

Thanks and see you all this Friday.

viji