15th meeting

Our today's story - "The Three Little Pigs" from "My Animal Treasury"

Today we had a REALLY exciting day! The book club had the biggest ever meeting, plus we had five more kids join the club! Now that brought up the total of us, kids, today to fourteen!

This meeting was not like the others. Umm Uzair, Hafsa and Uzair had prepared for us a surprise - we had the opportunity not only to listen to a story but also to see it. As Uzair was reading the story, Umm Uzair and Hafsa were doing a shadow puppet show, which showed us, what is happening in the story. They both were behind a bedsheet with a bright light shining on them from behid - this way, we could see on the bedsheet the shadows of the puppets they were working with. Even though all of us were familiar with the story "Theree Little Pigs", it was very great and funny to watch it as a puppet show.

After the puppet show, all of us found a place to sit down and divided ourselves according to families. Umm Uzair had a paper-crafts project for us today. We made paper kites - one for every family. Since the past few days had been very windy, and today was not an exception, this was a perfect project for us to work on. As soon as the kites were ready, we ran outside the gate to fly them in the alley of Umm Uzair's house. You can see the directions for the kites we made here: http://www.allfreecrafts.com/kids/paper-kites.shtml Do try to make your own!

14th meeting

Our today's story - "Sports Day" from "My Animal Treasury"

Today our Bookworms book club had an outing - instead of holding our meeting in Umm Uzair's home, all of us went to Atefa aunty's home (that's the mother of Isa, Muadh and Hibatullah). We were excited to see two new members join the club today - two brothers Uzair and Umair, who are visiting Pakistan from India! Welcome to the club!

Umm Uzair had prepared for us some questions, as to why is it important for us to do sports activities. She asked us, what kinds of sports we liked to do. The answers included nearly all the possible sports: squash, basketball, football, cycling, karate, running, etc., etc. We all agreed that we LOVE to do sports. As we talked, we agreed that doing sports is not just fun but also very useful for our bodies. We get not only bigger muscles, but also become stronger and are able to fight of diseases better.

Today's story was also about sports - "Sports Day". It was about two kittens Lulu and Lenny, who loved to do sports. But the trouble was that no matter what they tried to do (racing, jumping etc.), they always ended up in trouble in their alley - always somebody got hurt. When other cats of the alley complained to their mother, she decided to make a sports day for her kittens and the other cats in the alley. The cats refused to participate, as they wanted to take a cat nap. The mother then decided to call the dogs for help - they happily agreed. When the sports day started, the other cats felt bad about missing out on the fun, so they asked for permission to join in. The sports day turned out to be lots of fun. However, later everybody saw that it ended up being lots of mess in the alley as well. On seeing this, mother of the kittens said that the next day they were going to have "clean up the alley" day - and all of them laughed.

Having read the story, we went to have a small sports day of our own. Since the house of Atefa aunty is quite spacious, we had some races. We divided ourselves into two teams. First, we did relay-race. Then we practiced for double-race (two persons running with one leg tied together) and did also this race. Even though we kept on falling down, it WAS lots of fun and laughter! :)

13th meeting

Our today's story - "Piglet's Blustery Adventure"

Today, we came together once again after a longer break. Hafsa and Uzair had fallen sick - they both went through chickenpox, one after another. Due to this, our book club had to go on a forced 'vacation,' because, as we all know, chickenpox is very contagious and definitely not a pleasant experience to go through. Anyhow, all of us were very happy to see each other again!

Today, Umm Uzair started out by asking us, if we liked to fly. We answered that, of course, we did!!! Then she asked, if we had wings, to what we responded by laughing. So it happened that all of us had had the chance to fly in aeroplanes - this was what we meant, when we said that we liked to fly. When Umm Uzair asked us about other ways how people can fly, we mentioned helicopters, jets and rockets. Umm Uzair reminded us that we can fly by hot-air balloons as well.
Then Umm Uzair asked us, if birds also needed to go in aeroplanes to fly? We laughed and said that they have wings. Zainab shared with us that she had got at her home two parrots. We said that we'll visit her, so that we can see her parrots. Umm Uzair asked us, if we knew of any bird that couldn't fly. Isa mentioned chicks and he was right. Umm Uzair gave us some clues about one more veeeeery big bird that couldn't fly, and it was Isa again, who guessed that it was ostrich. Then Umm Uzair said that we were going to read about about a very special pig, who could fly. So we proceeded to our today's story - "Piglet's Blustery Adventure".

The story was about Vinnie the Poo's friend Piglet, who was raking leaves in his yard on a very windy fall day. He was quite unhappy, because wind kept on spoiling his work by carrying away leaves that he had raked together. Then, suddenly, a gust of stronger wind came and... lifted Piglet together with his rake into the air. Birds were too much surprised to see him flying! Who in the world could imagine that pigs could also fly? But Piglet was not happy about flying - he wanted back down. He even got a bit scared and upset, which made him stutter as he spoke. We really enjoyed this stuttering, because it sounded so funny, when Umm Uzair read it. Piglet flew past the Owl's house, saw the Tigger bouncing in the meadow and Eeyore building his house of sticks. None of his friends realized that he was looking for help... But after he flew past Rabbit, who was picking apples in his garden, the wind suddenly decided to have pity on poor, tired and scared Piglet and slowly, slowly lowered him down right in front of the Poo's door. Now, you can imagine, how happy Piglet was to be down and right at the Poo's door. He went to visit his friend and, as both of them sat inside eating some honey, they watched the gusty wind play with the leaves outside.

After the story, Umm Uzair asked us, if we thought that Piglet would go out on a windy day again. We agreed that he wouldn't. Then she asked us for some suggestions, what Piglet could do to keep wind from carrying him away next time. Isa suggested that he could tie one end of a rope around himself and the other to his house, so that he can get back, if the wind happens to carry him off. Uzair suggested that may be it would be a good idea for Piglet to tie a heavy stone around himself - this way, he would be too heavy for wind to carry him.

Having enjoyed the story, we proceeded to our today's craft - also a flying thing - a bird. Umm Uzair had made for us the shapes of brids' bodies, which we coloured with crayons. Then, she gave us a sheet of paper, which we folded into fan-type shape, which would become the wings of our birds. Umm Uzair did some small surgeries to our birds - she cut in their backs a line, through which we inserted the wings. Then, she attached to our birds strong straws and our birdies were ready to fly!

After we finished our crafts, Umm Uzair taught us a new game she used to play with her friends, when she was small. It was called "Owl and Birds". One person was the owl and all the others were birds. When the leader of the game said 'it's day', all the birds were flying around happily, while owl was sleeping. When the leader of the game said 'it's night', the birds had to freeze and the owl was flying around, looking for the birds that moved. If the owl noticed any bird move, that bird would be out of game - the owl woud eat it. And so the game went on till the last bird was left, who was the winner.