Book Club Start-Up

I'm happy to be a member of a couple of book clubs.  My face-to-face book club meets every couple of months, and I always look forward to it. It's always a good time because over the years, we have really discussed some great titles and had lots of fun! Of course, I'm also a proud member of the Nerdy Book Club!

But when I started my grade level book club at school, I had to try something different. This book club would be open to the entire grade level, and choosing a book would be a challenge since preferences are so varied!

So this is what I came up with:

• We meet once a week for 30 minutes. (Our school sets aside time on Friday for students to explore different activities.)
• We don't discuss one book in particular, but instead we discuss the books  are reading, and reading in general.
• We meet as a whole, then break up into clusters to share summaries and ask questions.

Over the weeks, I've really enjoyed meeting with this club. I've tried to make it a fun time for them, showing them book trailers, introducing them to new books, and creating book hype for upcoming releases. I found, though, that what the students really enjoyed was just talking to other readers! (We started an Edmodo group so the book-sharing can continue!) And, they also requested time to read!

On Monday through Thursday, anytime I see any of the Book Club members who are not in my class, I usually mention our upcoming meeting and tell them how much I look forward to seeing them. I'm seeing them mention it to each other, too.

This past Friday, one of the members said this: "I wish book club was for a whole hour!"
Starting a book club has been such a rewarding experience!