We've read the entire series. In fact, most of us have read the entire series more than once. And while we've never done an official book club meeting for these books, here are some activities that we've enjoyed right along with Percy and Annabeth.
When the movie (which we did NOT love) came out, we spent all morning making our own Camp Half Blood shirts and creating beads that would mark special things about us or our lives just like the camp necklaces do. Each one picked the part of Greek mythology they most related to in decorating their shirt. Great fun.
Another time we created and decorated swords and then attacked a box-drawn version of Medusa.
Here is our version of Aegis, Thalia's shield (an exact replica of Zeuss' shield, of course).
And here's Thalia's Pine Tree in cake form--complete with dragon and Golden Fleece.
When the movie (which we did NOT love) came out, we spent all morning making our own Camp Half Blood shirts and creating beads that would mark special things about us or our lives just like the camp necklaces do. Each one picked the part of Greek mythology they most related to in decorating their shirt. Great fun.
Another time we created and decorated swords and then attacked a box-drawn version of Medusa.
Here is our version of Aegis, Thalia's shield (an exact replica of Zeuss' shield, of course).
And here's Thalia's Pine Tree in cake form--complete with dragon and Golden Fleece.
We decided to learn about "how to"s today, so we talked about the important parts of a how to guide, including having all the steps, telling what materials are required, and having the steps in the right order.
Then we used 2 different how to guides for making play dough and talked about which was better and why. Finally, we used the dough to create dragons to take home.
And here is my big helper. I love having one all the time as these boys get older!
We absolutely love our book club. We started 2 weeks ago with "Down, Down, Down," a book from the Texas Blue Bonnet Award list. We read the book together at our meeting and learned tons about the ocean, especially about the zones. Then we made our very own oceans using what we learned: blue-food-colored honey representing the midnight zone, water for the twilight zone, and oil for the sunlight zone. Each child prepped their favorite creatures from each zone to tape on their ocean. Some of the boys completed their projects by adding lego submarines. Note: the kids love shaking the bottles and watching the ingredients settle out, but this doesn't work as well with the honey and water--they eventually combine and don't separate again.