Friendship Book Club Celebration

Mrs. Peyton and I were sad that our 2nd grade Friendship Book Club came to an end yesterday! These kids were amazing readers, always responsible with their assignments, and were great strategists at Mancala!  We celebrated the end of Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie with pickle flavored popcorn, cookies (sans pickle juice!) and watching a video interview of the author, Julie Sternberg, on the library's 70" monitor!  

5th Grade Book Club Members Voracious

Mrs. Peyton and I are so impressed with the members of our 5th grade Book Club. We are having such a good time together reading "The War That Saved My Life" by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This is a very special book you won't want to miss.

These readers are positively voracious.  They're very responsible with their books, follow the rules we made together, and on top of all that, have the most insightful discussions. 

They don't miss any of the subtleties of this book, and handle the issues within the text with compassion and grace.  The protagonist, Ada, is born with a club foot, and spends her life confined to a small London apartment with no running water or indoor plumbing, abused and neglected by her mother who is embarrassed by her differences. When WWII begins, children are encouraged to go to the countryside to avoid getting bombed.  Ada's mom forbids it, but Ada still sneaks onto the train anyway.  What is life like for her outside of the apartment?

2nd Grade Friendship Book Club Plays Mancala

2nd grade Friendship book club is going swimmingly - most of our members, in fact, couldn't help it, and they went ahead and read the rest of the book!  Since we're so far ahead, we took a week to play mancala, a game featured prominently in our book "Pickle Juice on a Cookie" by Julie Sternberg.

For fans of her book, good news- there are two sequels, both available in your Forest North library!  Come check them out today!

2nd Graders Chosen for Friendship Book Club

Mrs. Peyton, our counselor, and I love collaborating on book clubs together!  We take a book and talk about our feelings and dive deep into the text.  We started a new one yesterday with some amazing 2nd grade readers.  They each took turns reading aloud the first few chapters yesterday and I was bowled over by how much fluency and voice they already have developed when they read aloud. It's going to be a really fun group!

4th Grade Bibliotherapy Book Club

You may remember a post from last October showing Aiden reading an excerpt from our beloved Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri.  He was part of a special book club of focused and engaged young men that met with Mrs. Peyton and myself.  We had so much fun working with this great group of boys and they did a great job staying on top of reading and having insightful conversations about growing up, what it means to be a man and to belong in a group. We also made some new friendships!

Our cowboys, after decorating their saddle bags.

Mrs. P eyton and our readers (and one mom who came to celebrate with us!) decorating their saddle bags.

At the end of each session, this student's sister came in with her class to checkout as a group, and the love they showed each other would always make my day!  What a great example of sibling love!

Bibliotherapy Book Clubs

Mrs. Peyton and I are thrilled to be doing another year of joint book clubs.  Our Bibliotherapy book clubs focus on a social skill or life experience, target a group of kids who match that skill or experience, and read a book to help discuss it. We are bowled over every semester by how engaged these students get, how focused they are, how responsible they are with their reading, and how it bonds us together as a group.

We started two groups a couple weeks ago.  We're reading Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri with a group of 4th grade boys, and Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie with a group of 3rd graders. The students are already reading and responding in our meetings.  We're building relationships together in our group and having a lot of fun.  Check out Aiden reading this book- he has always been an outstanding reader.

3rd Grade Book Club with Mrs. Peyton

Mrs. Peyton & I have a special book club we like to call "Peyton, Fournier and Associates, LLC."  (The LLC stands for Lifelong Learners Club!) We just started meeting with 3rd graders a few weeks ago to read next year's Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee Quinny & Hopper. They are right on track with their reading, and earned their Bookworm spirit stick.  We were all so excited about that, we took a photo to celebrate.  Check out these readers!

Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie

Mrs. Peyton, Counselor, and I led a Friendship Book Club with 2nd grade girls this fall.  We read Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie by Julie Sternberg.  

It's about a girl named Eleanor who is so sad because her babysitter, Bibi, has to move to Florida to take care of her sick father.  Eleanor and her family have a tough time getting used to Bibi's absence, and to Natalie, Eleanor's new babysiter.  Eleanor works through it though, and over time, grows to love Natalie too.  It's a funny, great book, with a couple sequels too! 

To celebrate finishing the book, our six participants were invited to make their own green felt pickle bookmark, and we tried pickles, cookies, and even pickle juice on a cookie!  Check out our syllabus on the photo for more information about this fun book club.  

5th Grade Friendship Book Club Celebration featured on RRISD District website

Mrs. Peyton & I ran a book club to encourage new friendships as we read Apothecary by Maile Meloy with a group of 5th grade girls. Our book club was featured on the RRISD website!

Peyton, Fournier & Associates, LLC

Mrs. Peyton, Counselor, and I are excited to announce our new book club- Peyton, Fournier & Associates LLC (Lifelong Learners Club). Mrs. Peyton and I have recently read an amazing book called Wonder (R.J. Palacio) that we thought would be the perfect way to discuss ways that some of our students could work on reading and social skills. 

Mrs. Peyton, 8 of our coolest 5th grade students, and I are working together to read this book between meetings, and at our meetings, discuss the characters, plot and other features of the book and how it relates to our life. We're so excited as we start our journey together!

 Our first meeting was today during lunch. Students received a specially wrapped copy of the book (for keeps!), a small notebook and pencil to jot down their ideas, and we all wore a special sticker badge to celebrate our membership.