Book Club - Frindle by Andrew Clements

Today we had a great time discussing Frindle by Andrew Clements.  I used the Literature Circle Questions from the Scholastic Website to start our discussion and I was very pleased with how well all the kids remembered the book and really enjoyed it and wanted to share their thoughts with the group.















After we discussed the book and Nick's experience with creating a new name for an old object, the kids tried their hand at the same trick.  Each reader was given an item and had to create a new name for it and then give the group five clues about their item.  One friend renamed an airplane into a "reeper," and told us that it can fly, it has a motor, it has wings, and lands on wheels, and it stays at the airport.  First they tried to guess what it was just from the name, and then as each clue was read.  They were very creative changing the names of everyday objects:  Comb became "booka," shoe became "ecoe," rope became "ener," and hammer became "trindo."

Later we kind of strayed from the theme of the book to celebrate E's birthday.  She will turn eight tomorrow so she wanted to have a gift exchange with her book club.  We had a White Elephant gift exchange (and only one of the boys ended up with girly gifts).  After an extra round of trading everyone ended up quite happy with their prizes.

Then we were able to combine birthday theme and book theme and have some birthday cake for our treat.  In our book, when the principal came to discuss Nick's behavior with his parents they offered her banana bread, so E chose a banana cake to share with her friends.














Finally, despite the 100-degree-plus temperatures outside, everyone took a few minutes to burn off the cake in the backyard.  They came back in to cool off and explore their gifts a little more before parents came to pick them up.

Next time, in anticipation of Independence Day, we will discuss "Who Was George Washington" by Roberta Edwards.  We're looking forward to more time with friends!