We are blessed to have a Children's Librarian who also homeschooled her son (he is in college now!) and she loves homeschoolers ---and kid in general :)

Wow, thinking about this---it's been going on for a couple of years now.  "Melody" started a Homeschool Book Club at our local library branch here.  This is how it works:

Once a month they meet for one to two hours.  The "Friends of the Library" provide pizza and pop for the kids.  It is for kids who are readers---I think the age limit was 11 and up to begin with, BUT my young son was able to "get in" before he was a reader, he went with his older sister.  It really helped him WANT to read more!

Every month there is  a theme.  Books on the next month's theme are available at the previous month's meeting, but kids can read anything on that particular subject, theme, genre or whatever.  I have had to "nix" a few of the selections but very rarely.  YOU need to make sure your kids are reading appropriate material..(I love the public library, but my children know that there is a lot of garbage and dangerous material there, and they are NOT allowed to just grab whatever they want and start reading....)

Ok, so the kids talk about what they have read (no pressure, they don't have to say a word if they don't want to.)  Then the Librarian has hands-on activities that go with that month's theme.  She has done so many things.....lets see....she has done classification games, (putting books into their "class") puzzles,  etc.  Then this year, the kids conducted the meetings.  They pair up (two or three) and come up with the theme and activities. They have done "costumes" where they dress like their favorite character, and learned songs about the subject etc.  My daughter did the history of patriotic songs and had games where they had to name the songs etc.

 Yesterday, my son was in the leaders group.  Their theme was Mystery/Detective.  They played this crazy game called "Mafia." (I have no clue) and then they did fingerprinting with a neat kit we got, and played another game where you put a name tag on your forehead with another kids name on it.  (you don't know who's name you have) and you ask people questions that will help you figure out who "you" are.  (Who is on your name tag.) They really had a fun time!

Sometimes the pizza places will donate the pizza---Papa John's has done that many times.  I have found that if you just "ask" business owners will donate stuff to anything!  They are so generous. 

Anyway, it sounds like a lot, although it is only a once a month program.  Maybe YOUR local library would host something like this?  I am going to ask my friend the librarian if I can post her email for any questions you might have, so stay tuned!

Nancy