Reading is a great tool for language learning. It can also be a great way to bring elements of your own culture in. It is important that the books you choose to read are inclusive and non-discriminatory. Keep in mind the Belingual inclusivity guidelines when selecting what books to read to your children. If you want to read books that are religious in nature, make sure you check that this is fine with all other parents.  
Sometimes you may not be able to find a book that suits the theme, or there simply isn’t any children literature in your language, if you find audio stories, use those, or make up a story yourself, or get a book in another language and translate it before the club.  
Reading to a group of children can be different than reading to your own child. Here are a few tips for reading to children in a group:  

1. Start by talking about the cover, this will help get the children excited. Read the title. Ask the older children to help reading the title. Ask the children what they think the title means. 
   1. Point out the characters.  
   2. Count objects.  
   3. Look for colors.  
   4. Look at the illustration on the cover of the book.  
   5. What is happening in the picture?  
2. You don’t have to read the book word for word, you can adapt the story as you go along so that it suits the age and language capacity of your group. Use the pictures to help you tell the story at a level that makes sense for the children in your group.  
3. Comment on the story while you are reading and ask questions about and comment on what has happened so far. 
   1. You can ask the children to guess what might happen next, before you turn the page.  
   2. You can also ask YES or NO questions if that is more appropriate to your group’s language capacity.  
   3. You can also ask children to come to the book and point to something. Where is the X?  Can you point to X?  I see a X…can you find it? 
4.  Change your voice for the characters and to express characters emotions, this will keep the story exciting, and children will learn about emotions at the same time.   
5. Make sure all the children can see every page, hold the book so that the pictures face out towards the group and move the book slowly from one side of the group to the other, so everyone has time to see.  Read the story to yourself a few times before reading it to the children so that you are familiar with it.  You can sit on a chair; this will make it easier for everyone to see the pages. 

Source: https://supersimple.com/article/5-simple-tips-for-reading-to-children/ 

In Belingual we suggest specific routine that can be used for each club's session. These steps are the sugestions and can be flexible based on each club's setting, However, It is outcome of practicing it and the positive results that we received.

• Welcome everyone - Dependent of the club space, get everyone to sign in.  
• Leave name tags and each child and parent can write a name tag (name and where you are from). You can also use masking tape for name tags. 
• If there are more than one facilitator, do some easy activities with the kids whilst the families arrive: Have the picture cards from the previous club handy and revise the words, a great way to do this is by singing a song from the previous club. ​Give the children some coloring pens and paper and encourage them to draw something related to the previous club. ​​​
• Safety walk - Creating a safe space and feeling of safety is helped by a concrete action – a safety wants through the space. You may have new family joining every time. You can get the kids who know the space to show other children the space. Once the space Is familiar to everyone, you don’t need to do this. Make sure to show all new participants the emergency exits and the emergency gathering point.  
• Roll call - ​​Call each child and parent by their names and welcome them 

​​Go through the names of the children who are not present today 
If there are any new families joining, let them introduce themselves to the group and ask everyone to welcome them. 

• ​Agree (or recap) what the rules of the club will be. Make sure you have the rules up somewhere where everyone can see them.  
• Go through days schedule using the picture cards (and written schedule for the day):  

The facilitator shows a picture card. Give the children a bit of time to say the word if they know it.  
Repeat the word and encourage children to say the word. 
 Wait until everyone has said the word. 

• ​Hang up the days schedule on the wall where everyone can see it, this will especially parents understand what the schedule for the day is.  
• Welcome song: singing a short song that you sing at the start of each club (it can be any song) can be a good way to kick of the activities of the day. 

You can find the example of the starting of the club's activities for different themes in the BELINGUAL FACILITATOR GUIDELINES.

There are plenty of websites and other organizations online materials and resources which can be inspiring for the club acticities. we are sharing some of them in this post. If you have any ideas share them with us to be added to this list.

1. Blog — TA-DA! Language Productions - Award-winning, tactile language learning for kids from birth to age 14
2. https://bilingualfamily.eu/resources-for-parents/
3. https://pardisforchildren.org/resources/

Activity type: start of the club activity
Materials: picture cards
Age group: 2-6
Time: 50 mins
Language: All

Activity description:

1. Line up the colored toilet paper rolls or mugs that you have prepped. You should have one in each color of the day and have the name of the color written on the mug, with masking tape. 
2. ​Line them up like bowling pins a few meters away. 
3. Ask the children to get in a line. 
4. Each child gets to roll the ball on their own turn and try to hit the” bowling pins”. When a child hits a pin, they can take it with them and go to the end of the line.  Each child can try for as long as they hit a pin and their parent can help then along the way.  
5. Get the children to say the color of the pin they hit and encourage everyone to repeat. 
6. Once all the pins have been bowled, ask one child with a RED pin to come to the front and everyone says the color together.   
7. Ask the child what color they want next and then tell them to go get a friend who has that color pin and get them to come to the front 
8. After this get the two children to hold hands and get the next child, and so forth until all the children have joined the chain.  

Activity type: crafting, coloring activity
Materials: toilet paper rolls, colored pen
Age group: 2-6
Time: 15 mins
Language: All

Activity description:

• Give each child one paper cup or toilet paper role and tell them which color to color it. Parents can help with younger children.  
• Give each child a coloring sheet to continue coloring with once they have colored their cup/toilet paper roll.  
• Place colors red, blue, green, yellow and orange in the middle 
• Instruct children to color the pictures in the colors they want, however that they must always ask for the color they want.  
• Do a practice round: 

1. ASK - What color do you want? 
2. CAN I HAVE Yellow?  ​​

• MODEL THIS BEHAVIOUR A FEW TIMES and then let children color in their own time, parents should encourage children to change color and ASK the other children for the color they want.  
• Put some music on in the background while children color. 

FOR YOUNGER KIDS:  Encourage parents to actively repeat the colors to their child. You may want to break the group up into a few smaller groups for this activity.  

• When everyone is done coloring, ask children to bring the cup/toilet paper roll to the front and hang up their coloring work together. 
• Tidy the space together.  

Activity type: Starting of the club activity, Story time
Materials: piece of newspaper, cloth or a plastic bag, 2X straws or sticks, string, scissors
Age group: 2-6
Time: 30 mins
Language: All

Activity description: 

• Welcome everyone and instruct all parents and children get name tags 
• Safety Walk 
• Roll call and Rules  
• Give parents instructions on how to take part in activities with their kids. 
• Today the words of the will come from the book, or the cartoon chosen. You can prepare some picture cards beforehand or just use the book/video for the words. 

Today’s activities are based on ​2 books or an educational tv-series/cartoon. You can ask the children to vote for or choose the book or tv-series in the previous club. Make sure however that it is suitable and educational. You can pre-select suitable options with parents and let children vote.  Set out a cozy space for the children to sit or lay down. You can even dim the lights, if you plan to read a book put on some calm music, it should be a calm relaxing environment (it is ok if some kids (or parents 😉) fall asleep.  

• If reading books, see our tips for reading a book to a group. 
• If you want, you can print out coloring sheet with the characters of the educational cartoon you have chosen.  
• If there is a theme song, put that on and sing and dance together. 
• After watching you can let children come up with games or play inspired by what you have read or watch. The rest of the club is free play time.