You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

May i pick the collective brains of the group?
I've been asked to think about a reading challenge for school age children to be held over the Christmas period. I was wondering if something along based on the 12 day of Christmas might be an option. Can you have a glance over this & comment if you think it might work... The 12 days are listed on the left, a book topic is on the right. (formatting might be a bit naff - hope it's not too difficult to read...

Partridge in a Pear tree - Food
Turtle doves - Contains a peaceful scene, or an example of surrender (yes, I was struggling)
French Hens - Foreign country or in a foreign language
Colly birds - Birds
Gold rings - Features a sport (Olympic rings)
Geese a laying - Is set on a farm
Swans a swimming - is set in or on water (swimming or boating etc)
Maids a milking - animals
Lords a leaping - About a lord, lady or other member of the aristocracy
Ladies dancing - Features a hobby
Pipers Piping - Contains or is about music
Drummers Drumming - Involves someone or something making a lot of noise

Then allow the children to pick what books fit the categories, but obviously have some suggestions for each age group. Any ideas most gratefully received!

The Little Prince 7-9 year olds

Maybe this site has other season suggestions

http://www.scholastic.com/summer/

Suzie, good one.
Shirley - that's that looks interesting, I'll have a browse...

Drummers drumming could also be about patriots or something patriotic.

Turtle doves could be about love, friendship, peace. A good example of peace would be two children who are enemies finding the grace to forgive each other. Love could be any kind of love...family love, love for a pet, etc.

Just some ideas for you to add to yours and mull over.

I love this challenge, Helen! What lucky students to have someone who cares so deeply about instilling the love of reading into their lives!

What a great idea, Helen. Where's Cheryl? She'd be sure to have a number of books to recommend for each category.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
might work for animals or set on water.

The Polar ExpressChris Van Allsburgmight work for drummers drumming.

So much fun!

Thanks Connie - I think that's what I was struggling to phrase. I got the doves = peace connection, but couldn't quite get it any further.

Drummers could be patriotic, but I'm not sure what you'd read for that - we are british,you know. I also wonder if it might be a little politically sensitive, there's a lot of kerfuffle about the recent immigration from eastern Europe - and that may well cause division (are you Polish or British?) rather than unite them.

Thanks for the positive comments - sometimes an idea sounds great until someone points out the flaws, pleased to see there aren't too many so far!

Oh, I see about the patriotism. I was just thinking along the lines of parades, etc. But I never thought about the diversity being an issue; however, I can see it being delicate. I do get it now that I think about it.

What age group is this challenge going to involve? I think they will love it!

Maids a milking could be agriculture or jobs...

Drummers drumming could be about being yourself, i.e. dancing to a different beat or about community going along, everyone on the same beat.

It does look interesting and I think the larger the category the better for your students.

Let us know what categories you ultimately decide upon and I bet between us we can come up with a few books for each AND I am sure your students will too.

Oops, just remembered that the geese a laying were essentially agriculture. Maids a milking might still be an opportunity to explore various jobs...

Thanks Shannon - making maids a-milking into jobs is probably a wider field than animals would be. I could stretch Colly birds to be birds & animals in that case.

Connie - tbc as yet... They did a summer challenge around the olympics which was from pre-school to 13, so I'd imagine similar.

First I had to go look up what "colly" birds were :)

What about something involving reading a Christmas/Boxing story?

I haven't read these books but just stumbled across Little Princesses: The Peach Blossom Princess, The Sea PrincessThe Cloud PrincessThe Dream-Catcher Princess. And there are several other ones. Not the aristocracy of Britain but...

Ahh yes, what do you get 4 off? I don't think anyone really knows! There are several versions, calling birds being one that makes sense to the modern mind. There's also no definitive set - the top ones, particularly, move about.

Shannon - I was heading down the any old prince/princess/lord or lady would do the job there. Little Lord Fauntleroy is one that sprang to my mind.

The Door in the Wall Marguerite de Angeli is about lords, serfs,etc. Medieval England

The Whipping Boy Sid Fleischman is about a prince who convinced his whipping boy to switch places with him so he (the prince) could be a "real" boy for a while. Funny book! There are members of the nobility in the book.