Brown Bag Book Party!

Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures!  But, yesterday was our first (of hopefully many) brown bag book parties.  We got the idea from Pinterest, but changed it to reduce the amount of paper we would need to have many parties and to accompany literature we were reading.

We started preparing for our party earlier in the week by reading St. Patrick's Day in the Morning.  The story is about a little boy named Jamie who is not allowed to march in the town's St. Patrick's Day parade because everyone thinks he is too little.  Before his family wakes up, Jamie and his dog, Nell, march the parade route by themselves.  After discussing the story elements (setting, characters, problem, solution), the students completed their 'party ticket' (a graphic organizer where they had to write down the story elements - they could refer to the book for reminders).  The party ticket had to be finished to attend the party.  Once complete, the party ticket was glued to a brown bag.

On Friday afternoon, students were given Lucky Charms cereal to sort.  The students made a tally chart to show how many of each kind of marshmallow they had.  After completing a personal tally table, students mingled with other students and found out how many of each they had together.  They also found out what type of marshmallow each had the most and least of.  All the cereal went into the brown bag for the book party.

When it was party time, the students sat at their neighborhoods (tables).  Each table was given a cup with 6 craft sticks.  Each craft stick had a colored dot on the bottom.  The cup was passed around the table.  Each student had an opportunity to select a stick when it was his/her turn.  The dot color on the stick corresponded to a discussion task displayed on the board.  When all six sticks were selected it was time to snack on the cereal.  The kids had a great time and there was incredible conversation abounding!  We are already planning our next party!

In case you wanted to discuss the questions with your child, here is a list of the discussion tasks the students discussed in groups:
*   Think about a new ending to the story and share.
*  What do you think would have happened if Jamie's parents had woken up?
*  Tell about a time you were told you were too small to do something.  Share it with the group.
*  Make a text-to-text connection.
*  How are you like Jamie?  How are you different from Jamie?
*  What was your favorite part?  Why?

These are tasks that you can alter to accommodate any book your child is reading.