Chocolate Crickets, Vegetable Crickets, Celery Crickets, Oriental Fans and Cricket Cages were only some of the excitement of our Cricket in Times Square Book Club -- we also had a blast trying to eat with chopsticks.
The Cricket in Times Square Book Club
The Cricket in Times Square
The Cricket in Times Square Book Club Discussion
Though the book club was at my home, it was hosted by one of the other book club member’s mom. She started off book club teaching the children about the anatomy of a cricket and the difference between a cricket and a grasshopper. I’ll have to admit – I learned something about insects. For illustration purposes, she made a fantastic vegetable cricket out of an ear of corn, a red potato, some okra, and asparagus. I was quite impressed.
The Cricket in Times Square Book Club Activities
In the book, the trio of friends travels to Chinatown to learn more about crickets. Because a large portion of the book is in Chinatown, a large part of our focus was on Chinese culture.
The kids used paper plates, markers, and craft sticks to create “oriental fans” they could take home. We just folded the plates in half, drew a design, and glued the craft sticks to the back as handles.
We also used red paper and the directions from our previous month’s RaddishKids box to create paper lanterns. A little math was hidden in the project, as the kids learned how to use a ruler to measure and also draw straight lines. Then we “pretended” these were cages for our crickets.
We made crickets out of celery, peanut butter, pretzels and M&M’s. Then the children learned how to properly use chopsticks and tried picking up pretzels with them. Most of the kids gave up and begged the moms to create “kid chopsticks” from the wrappers.
The Cricket in Times Square Snacks
For snacks, some of the book club members helped make fried wontons. These were fabulous. I’m pretty sure I ate the most.
For dessert, we had chocolate crickets made out of giant marshmallows, chocolate, and pretzels. And, of course, we used our chopsticks for the entire meal.
We had so much fun with our book club that we didn’t even get to the Writing Project. That’s okay. We’ll save it for later.
Hi, I’m Dachelle. I’m a homeschooling mom of 3 in the South. I love chocolate and have been known to hide it from my children. I can often be found reading a good book (or even sometimes just an okay book) and enjoying a jar of Nutella — don’t judge. I blog, here, at HideTheChocolate.com when I’m not creating book clubs and making lists…lots and lots of lists (it’s an addiction). Learn more…
I just finished reading this book to my 3-yr-old and we loved it! So fun!
I love sweet, funny books like these. My youngest is getting into the second book right now.
I love all your hands-on activities for this book!
There were a lot of hands-on activities. I figure overplan and then you can always cutout things.
I am so excited to find this!! My younger boys & I will be reading this soon for our next Arrow. What fabulous ideas:)
So glad! I love it when someone posts fun activities about something we are about to start on. It gives me so many ideas!
This looks like such a fun event. I love how you made everything come alive with this creativity.
Outstanding book club meet! I’m definitely taking notes. Do you ladies think PJ could follow the novel? He is at a begining first grade level.
Yes, I do. You might want to use it as a read-aloud as some of the vocabulary might be a bit difficult for a first grader.
And thank you!
I loved this book when I read it years ago! Thanks for linking up your post. 🙂
Oops! I hit “enter” too soon! I love all of the great ideas you included in your article too! I like to do the same thing–plan more than I think I’ll need so I’ll be sure to have plenty to do. Your book club ideas always look like so much fun!! And they are always beautiful too. 🙂
Thanks, Wendy! It is an adorable book. And, yes, I’m a total overachiever HAHA!
These activities look so fun. I love chocolate. Your chocolate crickets look fun. Thanks for sharing on the #LMMLinkup this week.
Thanks, Mary!
That looks like such a cute book. I am going to have to get this and try to do some of the activities with my daycare kids. Thanks for sharing this at the LMM link up! Hope to see you at the next link up.
Connie