For my June D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) Book Club, we read selections from "NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society" by Michael Buckley, a fantastically funny book about a popular kid/bully that discovers that the biggest nerds in school are actually secret agents who save the world with their computer-enhanced nerd-ly powers. I run my book club a little differently than others, as I don't require the kids to read the book before they come; I've found that requiring them to read the book first sometimes dissuades kids from coming--and if they do sign up, if they haven't finished the book they think they can't attend. I love to read aloud, so it works out great for all of us. I choose series books and usually feature the first book, in the hopes of turning the kids on to a new series. Unfortunately, this month I was in the midst of recovering from an upper respiratory infection, and had no voice, so instead of me reading aloud, we listened to the audio book and read along. It worked out great. The narrator, Johnny Heller, is fantastic.
The second half of D.E.A.R. club usually involves playing games and doing crafts associated with the book we just read. Since NERDS includes lots of cool spy gadgets (including main character Jackson's retro-fitted Inspector Gadget-like braces), we absolutely had to make some cool spy gadgets of our own. I started out with a periscope. We made them according to the directions at the Exploratorium website . This worked out great, although I had to modify a few things. Instead of buying 2 mirrors for each kid, I found a pack of mirror board at the local teacher supply store (basically super shiny card stock). This didn't work great, but was okay for our purposes. I also would recommend putting slits to slide the mirror into on both sides of the periscope to keep it in place.
The second craft was by far my favorite, and as I invented it myself (I think). I am quite proud of it! We made secret compartment/decoder watches:
The watch band is duct tape (the kids got to choose a color) folded in half long ways. I measured the band to the kids' arms and used velcro for the clasp. The watch face is a matchbox covered with construction paper. The matchbox, of course, contained the secret compartment:
In this case, it held a vital tool for all spys: candy!
The decoder part of the watch was a little trickier. I found a clip art watch face using Google image search, then sized it down to fit on the matchbox. I also found a printable decoder from All for the Boys and sized that down to the same dimensions. The kids glued the larger of the decoder circles to the back of the watch face, then attached all circles to the watch using a brad fastener.
The kids had to use their decoders to solve a secret message.
A great time was had by all! I can't wait for another excuse to make my secret decoding compartment watch. So very much fun!
