Thanksgiving Themed Book Club

On Friday the group came over and we read Feast for Ten by Cathryn Falwell.  I love this book.  It's a counting book, but it tells the story of a family preparing a meal for "ten hungry folks."  My kids love to count, and they love number books, but I have to be honest, looking at numbers over and over again can get boooooring!  So I appreciate when an author tells a story around the concept of counting.

Another mom was kind enough to take pictures while I read to the girls.

One of these kids is not paying attention......

I love this one.  I didn't know I still had my "teacher face" but leave it to Harper to make me bust it out.

It was effective, too.  You can tell Harper's terrified.

After we read the story, I had the girls take a look at the last picture where the family is sitting around the table sharing a meal.  I asked the girls what kinds of foods they noticed that were in the picture. 

 After we studied the picture for a bit, I told the girls they were going to create their own groceries lists for feast they'd like to make.  They each got a piece of paper, and glued pictures of food on it.

Here are Hadley and Harper's finished lists:

Harper thought Pledge or some kind of "dust be gone" product would be a key ingredient in her feast. 

Next, we made turkeys.

I realize they look more like teepees here, but what you're looking at is the turkey tail.  The girls made faces and glued them on the opposite side, and then glued legs on the bottom.

Look at Hadley giving me a courtesy smile.

We ended by doing a little "I am thankful for" project.  I told the group that one thing people do around Thanksgiving is talk about what they're thankful for. We started by making lists of things in our lives that make us happy. 

After they came up with a list of things, they glued them to a plate, and decorated it. 
Looking at this next picture, I realize it looks as though this child is falling.  One might conclude that I was too concerned with taking a picture, and so chose to take the picture then help this child.  The real story is that I'm not what you'd call a camera whiz.  I pretty much point and click and hope for the best.  It turned out that she was in the middle of laying down while I took the picture, however, I liked her project so I wanted to show it off.

Here's another one:

Here's Hadley's:

She didn't want to decorate her plate, but she came up with some good things (Goofy, chocolate milk).
I got this idea from Becky Higgins' Blog.    We didn't do the exact same thing, but I loved the idea and wanted to try it with my book club gals.

Book Club isn't book club without a snack, and for this one we had delicious pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  The mom who brought them over couldn't get them out of the container fast enough.  They were a huge hit.

While we're on the subject of being thankful, I'd like to say that I'm thankful I get a chance to do this.  It can be crazy and loud, and book club doesn't always go how I planned it. I wonder sometimes if it's more of an annoyance then something fun for my girls and company.  But after everyone left, and I cleaned up, Harper was taking a nap and Hadley and I were coloring together.  She said, "Mom?  Book Club is awesome."  I am thankful for that.