Charlie & The Chocolate Factory Book Club Celebration
What an amazing book club celebration! My heart was overwhelmed by the presence of all of the amazing kiddos and parents that attended our Charlie and The Chocolate Factory Book Club Celebration. The meeting space was filled with balloons, including a fun balloon arch along with a Violet balloon popping activity.
There were activities centered around the Kent County Success Basics. At the LOVE Success Basics table families were able to take a selfie or have a photo taken by our amateur photographer with the Chocolate Room as the background. At the READ Success Basics table families were able to create their own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Character by selecting prepared first and surnames such as Horatio Squareeyes or Ada Sourgrape. At the TALK Success Basics tables children were read a description of Augustus Gloop and they were encouraged to draw their version of Augustus based on the description. At the COUNT Success Basics table families were able to count and sort the colored eggs at the table and identify the BAD EGGS. Last, at the PLAY Success Basics table families were able to play Charlie and the Chocolate Factory bingo and deflate Violet with the balloon popping activity.
The evening started off with dinner from Chick-Fil-A which is always a crowd favorite. Children 5 and under were escorted to childcare provided by our amazing childcare providers.
Our Book Club Celebration was underway with readings by two of our amazing parent representatives, Melisa Hartley and Marian Russell. After reading a chapter from the book, a clip from the movie was shown for the parents and children to compare and contrast the two. It was great joy to see the number of children that spoke up and shared some of the differences they noted between the book and the movie. We also had a superstar kiddo that not only read the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory book in three days, but she also read two other Charlie & The Chocolate Factory books and watched all three movies! Rockstar status! It is beautiful to see the love of reading flourish among the children.
After our book club discussion, the children were divided into groups and were able to participate in the activities at the various Success Basics tables…it was definitely organized chaos – in an amazingly great way. After the meeting each child was able to pick out a candy bar with hidden golden tickets. The excitement in the air as children found that their candy bar included the golden ticket was so much fun to see! There were a number of kiddos that received a golden ticket. All of the recipients of a golden ticket were included in our wheel of names drawing to pick the grand prize winner. All in all, the meeting was a great success!
The Grand Rapids Children’s Museum was also onsite with play bags for families in addition to a year long membership to the museum. They are such an amazing partner and we appreciate all that they do to support families in Kent County!
The next Great Start Family Coalition meeting is April 11th and families are encouraged to RSVP early as the meeting will likely reach capacity. Families can RSVP by emailing gsparents@successstartsearly.org.