What is the

Kindergarten Book Club Observation?

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What is the Kindergarten Book Club? The Kindergarten Book Clubs are an opportunity to encourage reading at home and Kindergarten children's discussion at school. This approach links home and school around the important issues of character education. The Book Clubs, created by Margie Donnelly a teacher at PK Yonge Developmental Lab School, are structured so that the children choose from a basket of books each day. Each basket of books is organized by a theme (i.e., attributes such as loyalty, justice, honesty, love, courage, respect and hope). The children take the books home and read them with their parents. Inside the cover of each book are guiding questions that help the parents explore the theme of the book with their child. Each morning as the children return to school, they meet in their morning book clubs to discuss the book that they read at home with their peers. By the end of the week, all the children in the group have read each book and rich, lively discussions emerge. Prospective Teacher's Observation of the Book Clubs Each prospective teacher will observe a book club. You are to maintain detailed notes about the contents of the discussion that you are eavesdropping on and notes as to which books were discussed. At the end of this observation, review your notes and identify the interesting themes or issues that emerge. Were the clubs effective? Why or why not? What could have enhanced the book clubs? What do the children seem to be noticing or learning about the virtues? Construct a summary sheet that responds to these types of questions and any other ideas that seem important to you to share. These notes and summary sheet must be turned in to the course instructor.

Review: Discussions (Seminar and Deliberation) Read: Using Stories about Heroes to Teach Values (1998) by Tony R. Sanchez http://www.indiana.edu/~ssdc/digest.htm Character Education (2000) by Evelyn Holt Otten http://www.indiana.edu/~ssdc/digest.htm Fostering Civic Virtue: Character Education and the Social Studies-NCSS Position Statement http://databank.ncss.org/index.php?topic=positions