Book Club - "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" by Louis Sachar

Our first week of book club was a success!  Three friends were able to join E this week and we had a great time discussing our book, "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" by Louis Sachar.

As the friends were arriving we had them fill out a paper so we could play a simple game of "Can You Guess Who I Am?"  Most of the kids know each other but there are a few who go to different schools so we wanted them to all be able to get acquainted.  Everyone secretly wrote down five things about themselves to help the others guess who they were.  The kids knew each other well enough to guess pretty much everyone by the second fact, but it was fun to give them a moment to tell us the things they think are special about them.

Once we were all settled down after getting to know each other, we got out our copies and talked about our favorite chapters of this wacky book.  The girls loved Chapter 19, which E even memorized.  (Don't be impressed; it's only three sentences long.)

We read aloud from Chapter 6 about Bebe Gunn, the fastest draw in art class, and then we each tried to develop her talent while playing a rousing game of Pictionary Junior.

They split up into their own teams...

T and P on the White Girls team

E and J playing for the Black Girls!

Finally we talked about Chapter 14, where Mrs. Jewls made special ice cream flavors that tasted like each of the children in her class.  We didn't have any kid-flavored ice cream in the house, so we just had to have Blue Bell ice cream sundaes.  (Never before have such small people eaten so many toppings!)

pre-ice cream disaster mess

Quick, somebody throw all the cherries on the floor!

While they ate we talked about books they had read in the last few months and made a list of books we might want to read and discuss in our club.  Then for the last few minutes they watched Wayside the Movie and laughed and played.




It was a great first outing for Book Club and we are excited for next time when we will discuss "Frindle" by Andrew Clements.