Percy Jackson Book Club for Boys
Percy Jackson is an either/or kind of book series … you either LOVE it or hate it. My 2nd grade son loves it so he proposed it for his book club and I found the graphic novel version to give his friends something new to read. For his book club, we will: make duct tape swords, eat blue food, play Medusa Freeze Tag, and wind down with a trivia game.
Duct Tape Swords
For our first activity, we’ll talk about Percy’s pen/sword Riptide or Anaklusmos (in Ancient Greek: Ανακλυσμός) which is made of Celestial Bronze, a material that is effective only on gods, demigods, Titans, Giants, and monsters.
Riptide was formerly owned, and used, by Hercules and Pleione. The sword’s dormant form was originally Zoë’s hair clip, which she gave to Hercules to help him fight Ladon. Riptide draws its power from the ocean, which is why it works well for ocean spirits and children of Poseidon like Percy.
We’ll make duct tape swords using aluminum foil and duct tape like these here:
If I can find some large cardboard boxes, we can make shields too.
Physical Activity
Little boys need some running around time.
- Medusa freeze tag. Tag game in which one person is Medusa. You can free your frozen teammate by tapping them.
- Sword fighting (to test out our duct tape swords).
Snack
It must be blue, of course!
• Blue punch
• Blue birthday cake
• Blue corn chips
• Blue dip (just a few drops of food coloring make any dip blue-licious!)
Percy Jackson Trivia
We’ll wind down with a trivia game.
1. Who is Annabeth’s mother? Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom.
2. Who is Clarisse’s father? Ares, the God of War.
3. What sort of creature is Mr. Brunner? Centaur, half horse/ half human.
4. What sort of creature is Grover? Satyr, half goat/half human.
5. Two words: What is the name of Percy’s boarding school? Yancy Academy
6. How many Olympian gods are there? 12
7. What type of tree is on top of Half-Blood Hill? Pine tree
8. What is Mr. D’s full name? Dionysus, God of Wine
9. What sort of animal head hangs above Ares’ cabin? Boar
10. Name one thing that Hermes is the god of. Thieves. Also, messenger god.
11. Who is the wife of Zeus? Hera
12. What is the pattern on Mr. D’s shirt? Tiger stripes
13. Where do Percy and his mother like to go on vacation? Montauk on Long Island.
14. Three words: according to Percy’s mom, how did his dad disappear? Lost at sea.
15. Who is Dionysus’ father? Zeus
16. What is Dionysus restricted from? He can’t drink wine or any other kind of alcohol for 100 years.
17. What part of the Big House seems mysterious to Percy? Attic
18. What does Percy use to defeat Clarisse when she tries to bully him? Water from the toilets.
19. What lives in the canoe lake? Naiads
20. Aside from pinochle, what is another game Dionysus considers the greatest human achievement? Pac-Man
21. What is Smelly Gabe’s last name? Ugliano
22. What sort of creature tried to attack young Percy when he was taking a nap in daycare? Snake
23. Who was Zeus’ mother, who hid him from Kronos? Rhea
24. Chiron says there is a statue of what Greek mythological figure in Rockefeller Center? Prometheus
25. Who is the Greek lord of the dead? Hades
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Paperback Boxed Set (Books 1-3) by Rick Riordan
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief, The Graphic Novel
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Love those swords! I think if I make one for Beckett he’ll never let it out of his sight. At 3, he’s already jumped on the weapons bandwagon. P.S. check your teeth in a mirror after eating all that blue food.
Hi Jeanette,
Everything turns into a weapon. The boys made swords, dagger and nunchucks. Then they tried them out. Luckily, no injuries! And I was too lazy to do the blue food.
This sounds like so much fun for a bunch of little boys. Your son is very lucky to have you as his mom!
Thanks so much MaryAnne. The boys did love duct tape and one of them did it all weekend at home. More swords I think. And also shields.
I love the blue colors on the swords! My daughter is a big Percy Jackson fan (she’s hoping to have a Percy party for her birthday). I’m going to quiz her after school with your great questions – thanks for the fun ideas!
Hi Jacquie,
I’ve read Percy Jackson series twice and I got stumped on two questions. I’ll look them up and post all the answers since I failed to link the list to the URL with the answers and my Google search was unsuccessful in relocating it. A Percy Jackson birthday party would be fun. Imagination Soup did one for her daughter and posted on it with all their ideas if you need them.
Thanks Mia – the answer link will be great! And yes, I have Melissa’s party as one of the ideas we’ve been looking at (thank you). My daughter is trying to convince my husband to dress like Chiron (ha!) and she wants me to dye my hair red (such a creative little thing). I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂
Hi Jacquie,
Sounds like your daughter has wonderful ideas for her party! She should guest post for me on a Percy Jackson party (or your blog!). I love her ideas! I guess your husband could wear a tweedy jacket and sit in a wheelchair for the easier version of Chiron as human teacher.
I love the Percy Jackson series (and I’m not embarrassed to admit that even though I’m 33 years old)!! I hadn’t read any of the books until a few weeks ago–a younger cousin was given two copies, so he offered to give me one when I said I’d been wanting to check them our for awhile, but hadn’t had the chance. Then, I ended up with a bad cold around New Years and read the entire series while resting and recuperating. I thought they were great–especially good for a child who might love Harry Potter but isn’t quite ready to read that series on their own yet.
I love your reading group activities–especially the sword and all the blue food. Sounds like so much fun!
Hi Katrina,
I’m a big Percy Jackson fan too and I did a weekend binge the first time through the series. I did nothing but read all day and all night. It was perfect! I don’t get to do that very often!
I’ll post on the book club. We didn’t do the blue food but the boys did lots and lots of duct tape weapons.
Now I’m even more intrigued to read Percy Jackson – I love Greek/Roman mythology and it sounds like it’s packed with references. As a teenager I would pore over an encyclopedia of Greek mythology for hours at a time and I even read Homer’s The Iliad.
I hope your son and his friends enjoy their book club!
Hi Elle,
YES! You are a great candidate for Percy Jackson then! I was a mythology geek as a kid too! Beware though, since you can get 8 books of the series now, you might be tempted to read them all in a binge like I did. 3 days and nights to read the first 5 series. My kids were not too happy about that!
How do we love Percy Jackson ? If you knew how many summer nights we laid awake reading Percy Jackson. This is a great book club adventure and the activities you’ve prepared are just perfect to bring this book to life. Happy Reading in the rest of the Percy Jackson adventures.
My son is in first grade but is an avid reader already..Im interested in your son’s book club? How does he do it, do you have tips on how to start one for kids. I know my son would love to do something like this! Those swords are too too cool.
Hi Isra,
This is my post on How to Set Up a Kids’ Bookclub: http://www.pragmaticmom.com/2012/01/our-kids-most-successful-book-club-meetings/
It’s really fun! I hope you decide to start one for your son. I have all the book club for boys posts here: http://www.pragmaticmom.com/category/literacy-school-subjects/book-club-for-kids/
Was trying to find a recipe for blue cookies and ended up here. That’s when I saw the title for this website and the materiel. Honestly your heteronormativity it so suffocating, why is it just for boys?? What about your girls, enbies and others??
I know that you probably didn’t think twice about it, and all seem really nice and happy and probably not on anti depressants, but you need to stop this and please stop gendering everything, I see it every where and I for one am getting sick of it !!! I know a lot of these types of people would be on here and this will make the message travel, so its a prefect place to call you out that’s right I’m calling you out.( I know so dramatic mwhahahaha)
Girls (and others) can have the same interest as boys (or not) and boys aren’t restricted to only this masculine shit. It’s their choice they can do what ever and maybe being stereotypical is what keeps them sane, whatever!!
The point is you don’t need to label thing “boys” and “girls” its toxic and outdated.
GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRACT REALITY IS AN ILLUSION
-Sincerely from the kinky dramatic, feministic, social justice warriors known to her friends as that bitch and to their parents as a disappointment
(sorry for the rant)
(P.S) I loved reading Percy Jackson, Hero’s of Olympus, Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo and the Kane Chronicles and loved all the characters (except Octavian ew) but especially Will Solace and Alex Fierro they were so loveable and I admit I’m a bit obssesed, so if you haven’t already go read the books!!
-it’s 3am in the morning I have school tomorrow and I’m sleep deprived and writing an unnecessary social justice comment on a soccer mums website what am I doing with my life??
I need more serotonin.
Hi Lila,
Sorry about the gendering. This was an older post and it happened to be a book club for my son’s book club which was comprised of all boys. I used to gender more when I started blogging eleven years ago and I’ve since learned that it’s wrong. I’m so sorry about that but learning is part of my blogging journey. My daughters also read Percy Jackson and other Rick Riordan books. My oldest loved his books, my middle daughter did not. My middle daughter did not care for action-adventure fantasy books as a genre and it had nothing to do with gender. But my son loved Rick Riordan so much that he read every single one of his books. We also went to hear Rick Riordan speak … twice. He even read Rick Riordan’s latest book while recovering from surgery for four days in the hospital (instead of watching TV). My oldest was not as passionate about Riordan.
Riordan also helped me understand gender fluidity. No matter how many times my daughters explained it to me, I was still confused until I read Riordan’s books with Alex Fierro. Riordan always gets it right, which is so impressive since it was a new concept to a lot of us who are around the same age.