We’ve gone to the future with the Diamond of Darkhold book club and last meeting we went to medieval times with Igraine the Brave. Our latest book club meeting left us here in the present. We read Schooled by Gordon Korman, where 12 year old Capricorn (Cap) Anderson leaves his hippie commune and becomes a student at a suburban middle school. His culture shock is obvious and pretty humorous. We had a lot of fun with the book and also with the book club meeting.
After our traditional discussion about our favorite parts of the book, we speculated about what happened after the book ended. It was a good stretch of their creative muscles. Then we moved on to a stretch of their physical muscles and tried some Tai Chi moves. Make sure your have plenty of space for this activity!
Next we perused our music library and exposed the younger generation to some music from the 60’s, Cap’s favorite (of course). I listened to a bunch of oldies with my mom when I was a kid, so I was surprised at the small size of my collection. I already knew one of my children isn’t an Elvis fan, and I think he added a few other bands and singers to his list that day. The Beatles are one of the most frequently mentioned bands in the book. I have a few of their songs, but I’m not sure the kids got a very well-rounded taste of their music. The one or two Simon and Garfunkel songs I have don’t even include one of my favorites, The Sound of Silence! (I don’t think it would have mattered because I’m pretty sure my children wouldn’t appreciate it the way I do.) None of them cared too much for Bob Dylan‘s old music.
Finally we tried a small scale tie-dye activity. When my child first suggested tie-dye I started to panic thinking of the supplies and the mess. What we did only required rubber bands, fresh juicy markers and baby wipes. Fresh juicy markers work the best. Just rubber band sections of the wipe like you would if you were tie-dying a shirt. Instead of dipping the wipe into dye, use the marker to color the small banded off sections. The colors will blend together in some areas and leave other areas white, very reminiscent of true tie-dye.
There you have it, another fun and fairly simple family book club meeting. The only thing we skipped this time was the refreshments (I don’t know how that happened). We have been exposed to another good book, added to the family connections (and jokes), and built great memories.
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