Christmas Book Club: The Polar Express and Hot Cocoa Mix

**Before class even begins, learners may print and cut out the personalized train tickets I will have sent to them upon enrolling, thread with yarn or string, and wear during our class, in addition to their Christmas hat or sweater (or both). Secondly, be sure to have the ingredients set out, but not yet measured (These are listed on the larger train ticket, which is on the same sheet as your learner's personalized train ticket). Finally, make sure your learner has the kitchen supplies needed set out and ready before class (listed, here, under "Learner Supply List").

To begin our time together, we'll play a get-to-know you game (A Christmas themed "Would You Rather?"). Learners may just listen, but I know we would all love for each friend to participate. This is such a fun way to enjoy time with our peers. 

Just like any great book club discussion would, we’ll discuss the literary elements and our favorite parts of Chris Van Allsburg’s famous book, The Polar Express. (Before class meets, children will either already have read it for themselves, or listened to a read aloud from an adult, on YouTube, or the through the audio version.) I will send a PDF to parents which gives students a brief overview in advance of our round table discussion.

An important skill of literary analysis is supporting our ideas about a specific piece of literature using the text, itself. The most wonderful and effective learning takes place when learners feel safe, included, and valued. I will warmly encourage all learners to join in this discussion, lead them to use the story to back up their ideas, and model respect for all readers' understanding and ideas.

We will not spend time reading the book during this book club session, but will refer back to portions of the text for discussion. However, students DO NOT NEED to have their own copy of the book for this.

Once we've finished our round table discussion, we'll use a recipe I've created to each make our own batch of homemade Hot Cocoa Mix. Students will learn to measure, mix, and heat water in a microwave (adult supervision certainly welcome). We'll enjoy a cup of the hot cocoa we've made and store the remainder of the mix in an airtight container.

If time allows, while we sip our cocoa we'll play a wrap-up game ("Christmas Riddles", where learners will listen to clues to make inferences).