TD Summer Reading Club Week 1: Ages 9-12

Welcome to the TD Summer Reading Club of 2016! This year our overall theme is "WILD", so you can only imagine all the fun and laughs we're going to have into this summer! 

With 8 weeks of incredible and imaginative fun planned for the whole summer, there will never be a dull moment. There will also be contests and prizes running each week while we read and get "wild" all summer long!

Week 1: Welcome to the Jungle

For week 1 of our summer program, we visited the deepest depths of the jungle! We explored and learned about lots of new animals, like ocelots, marmosets and howler monkeys. Our question of the day was "If you could be any animal from the jungle, what would you be?" We had lots of great answers, ranging anywhere from sparkly pink cheetahs to flying tigers!

To start off our program we started off by introducing ourselves, then we played two games to get to know each other:

1. Fact or Fiction

Ask everyone to write on a piece of paper three things about themselves which may not be known to the others in the group. Two are true and one is not. Taking turns they read out the three ‘facts’ about themselves and the rest of the group votes which are true and false.

2. Deserted Island 

Announce, 'You've been exiled to a deserted island for a year. In addition to the essentials, you may take one piece of music, one book (which is not the Bible) and one luxury item you can carry with you i.e. not a boat to leave the island! What would you take and why?' Allow a few minutes for the young people to draw up their list of three items, before sharing their choices with the rest of the group. 

 After our first two games, I had the kids try to guess all the different animal tails:

Then we played "Would You Rather?":

1. Would you rather suck like a leech or bite like a mosquito?
2. Would you rather catch food like a spider or scavenge like a raccoon?
3. Would you rather sweat like a pig or eat like a rabbit?
4. Would you rather have ears like a mouse or the nose of a toucan?
5. Would you rather live in the home of a spider or a turtle?
6. Would you rather swim like a fish or fly like a dragonfly?
7. Would you rather chirp like a bird or sing like a grasshopper?
8. Would you rather make silk like a worm or dams like a beaver?
9. Would you rather play like a cat or work like a dog?

Nobody wanted to work like a dog, who knew! 

After that, we played our last fun game before craft called "Take the Treasure":

1.      Invite everyone to sit in a large circle. Place a chair in the middle. On the chair place the treasure (a set of keys). Ask for a volunteer to guard the treasure from thieves and give them a rolled up newspaper. Unfortunately, they have to do this while being blindfolded!

2.      Once the guard is in place beside the chair, a thief is quietly chosen from the circle. They must attempt to sneak up to the chair and without alerting the guard, and snatch the treasure.

3.      Meanwhile, the guard listens for the thief and tries to swat him with the newspaper baton. If the thief is swatted, he must return to the circle. If he succeeds in stealing the treasure and returning to the circle, his prize is to become the new guard.

This game guarantees lots of giggles!!!

After we were tired out from all of our fun and games, we decided to start our craft. 

This week we made King Julien's hat from the movie Madagascar! 

Materials:

• Construction paper (green, orange, yellow)
• Scissors
• Stencils
• Tape or glue 
• Hole punch 
• String 

Directions:

Next week our theme is BUGS! We will be discovering about all sorts of bugs, ranging from ants to butterflies and everything in between. 

Don't forget to bring in your reading logs to be entered to win the weekly prize!

See you next week!