A Family Book Club Party

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the reading guide which LeapFrog had put together, this was filled with tips on how to get kids reading at home. One of the suggestions was holding a book club party, something you can do as a family or your children can do with friends. It gives them the opportunity to read the same book as others and discuss what they thought about the story, the characters etc.

LeapFrog were kind enough to provide my kids and I with the bits needed to hold a book club party of our own, the book we were going to be looking at was Sofia the First, which is compatible with LeapFrog's very own LeapReader.

I'll be reviewing the LeapReader very soon but for now let me show you just how well our party went.

We were given lots of goodies including dressing up outfits, decorations, colouring kits and plenty of items to pop into party bags.

I set up the party ready for when the girls came home from school and of course no book discussion is complete without cookies!! I even had a Sofia the First cd to hand to bring a little background noise to the party whilst they read.

Funnily enough there seemed to be a lot of Sofia's suddenly appearing around my house, little princesses in the making.

Because the LeapReader is aimed at children aged 1-3, I had the girls split into pairs reading the books together. The story was easy to understand, written in short sentences and with the LeapReader reading out the words, no details were missed.

To keep the party exciting, instead of a normal discussion, I decided to put together a little quiz to see if the girls had been paying attention to what they'd been reading. Full marks all round saw lots of prizes being won, my haribo collection got raided.

Once the reading was over, a colouring contest started, apparently they liked the idea of winning more sweets!! To keep the talking going as they were reading I was asking questions as the girls coloured such as the colours of the characters, were they the same as what they had seen in the book? What do you think Sofia done after she won the race? It was a great way of carrying on the story.

I think as the girls get older it will be nice getting them reading the same books, even better when they can read what I'm reading and we can start comparing notes/thoughts. I'd also like to see more schools holding book clubs too, time to step away from the computers and pick up a good paperback instead!!

Have you held a kids book club party before? If not would you consider doing it?

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