Homeschooling at Walt Disney World

Last fall I worked with a couple of other homeschool families to start a book club.  The goals were simple – to introduce our children to classic literature and to incorporate a writing/public speaking element (with each book we would introduce a different writing activity for the children to complete and share with the group).  The kids had a wonderful time talking about the books with their friends and continuing the activities at home.

For the spring we decided to add a few more elements to make things even more interesting.  We decided to incorporate additional language arts/lapbook activities for the children to do at home as well as link the books we are reading to something at WDW.  We are just two weeks into our new and improved book club and the kids are more excited than ever (something we’re very pleased about since it’s a group of 8-10 year old boys who usually complain about reading!!).

For January we selected the “Jungle Book.”   We did online research for resources and found some great materials.   Our favorites include –  “The Jungle Book Study Guide (Saddleback Classics)” and   “Jungle Book Classroom Connections” .  We even found a film education guide for seeing the Jungle Book movie.

Our plan is for the kids to read the book at home on their own, then we will all come together twice during the month for group activities.  For the first meeting we discussed some of the basic elements of the book, participated in a cooking activity (they baked “snakes on a stick” ) and gave the kids a writing assignment to work on at home.

For our next meeting we will visit the Magic Kingdom to ride the “Jungle Cruise” together and after that we’ll find a spot to sit and give them a chance to share their writing assignments with each other.

Some of the other at-home activities will include researching the author, doing a book report, making other recipes and watching the movie of the Jungle Book (and comparing it to the book).

So far it’s been a “wild” adventure and the kids are excited that we have been so creative in pulling everything together!  We’ll keep you posted on our progress…