Rules- Meeting #13

Our seventh meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on Rules by Cynthia Lord.  This book is one of my all time favorites as a speech pathologist.  The main character is a 12 year old girl who has a brother with autism (who needs "rules" explicitly explained regarding social skills).  One day she befriends a teenage boy at the speech clinic who is non-verbal and communicates using picture symbols.  The book is simply fantastic and explores what it must be like to have someone else choose what words you can say, how your words are on display for others to see, etc.

The host girls with opinions made a cute sign for the RULES of book club tonight.

The host mama served the girls chicken nuggets, fries, and fruit while we discussed the book.  We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion. They gave it all thumbs up, with one to the side.

All thumbs up except for one to the side.  For us- success!

Lots of things to share

The girls were mainly not happy with the bully in the book who is mean to David.  They liked that Catherine did the right thing in the end.  They were also curious to learn more about autism and communication disorders.

All the girls were asked ahead of time to send a list of their 20 most important words for a communication board prior to the meeting.  I used my Boardmaker software to create the boards for them.  Their boards were so cute.  It was interesting to see what words they chose.  The words were color coded by type (adjectives, nouns, etc).  Some chose mostly nouns, others adjectives, etc.  Their boards are pictured below.

NOTE:  For those of y'all wanting to do this activity who do not have BOARDMAKER, this could be accomplished using clip art and Google image search.  Also, there is a website with may premade boards that could be explored to learn more about augmentative communication.  They are all free to download as both a Boardmaker file and a PDF.  A great resource:  Setbc.org PictureSet

For our activity, the girls tried to communicate only using their communication boards for 3 minutes.

At the end of the activity, I gave the girls a sample of a "core vocabulary" communication board that I actually use with some of my students.  They could see how these vocabulary words might be more useful across contexts.  However, I think they did a great job choosing their words!

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are reading Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff.

How to Steal A Dog- Meeting #12

Our sixth meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on How To Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor.  This book was the most controversial choice we've had so far and I was a little nervous how it would be received by the girls.  Heavy topics such as homelessness, stealing a dog, and also the grief of the owner of the missing dog brings a lot of emotion to this book.  The girls really seemed to love this book however, and it was a good choice.  As the girls get older, the books inevitably get more emotional and deal with some heavy topics.  The Mamas with Opinions are all in agreement that the girls are under no pressure to continue reading a book if they find it disturbing and the mamas show trust in me when I choose the books.  Spring semester of 3rd grade seemed an appropriate time to try this book.

The host mama had an adorable dog themed spread with corndogs, snacks, and cute doggie statues to make the table festive.

Our book club meets the second Tuesday of every month, and it happened to fall on the birthday of one of the Girls With Opinions.  She wanted to come to book club anyhow because WE LOVE BOOK CLUB!  :)  We were happy she wanted to spend her real actual birthday with book club :)  So of course, we had some special stuff to celebrate.

Birthday girl

We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion. No thumbs down on this book, but a few to the side.

 The girls love any book about dogs so their favorite character was unanimously Willie the dog.  In the story, Georgina is dealing with extraordinarily difficult circumstances.  Her dad has left, they were evicted from their apartment, and she is living in a car with her mother and brother.  She is desperate for them to have enough money for a real home.  Her mother makes a lot of promises and is clearly stressed and working hard, but they appear to be in a hopeless situation.  Georgina sees a reward sign for a dog, and figures if they steal the right dog and return it for reward money, their problem will be solved.  The girls felt the characters were very realistic.  And that people who do bad things sometimes do so out of desperation or because they are in a very difficult position.  One girl said she felt frustrated that Georgina wasn't more patient with her mother who was trying very hard.  They also weren't happy with the way Georgina lied to her teachers.

One of the most fun parts of the discussion is when they girls are asked how the story could have been told differently.  They always have such interesting ideas on a story rewrite or the parts of the story they would have liked to hear more about.

For the craft, the girls made dog treats for their dogs at home.  The host mama premade the dough and gave portions of the girls to form into bones/treats.

Our recipe came from the Three Dog Bakery Cookbook.

One of our members brought this cute picture to book club to share.  We have lots of Book Club pride!....and we all love Pokemon.  Or at least most of us :)  It is awesome that they are so into our little club.

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are reading Rules by Cynthia Lord.

Piper Reed, Clubhouse Queen- Meeting #11

Our fifth meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on Piper Reed, Clubhouse Queen by Kimberly Willis Holt.  This was a fun light read for the girls.  No heavy topics or too much drama.

The host mama made a delicious dinner.  We could smell the burgers on the grill as we came inside!  The girls ate "Neptune Burgers" (hamburgers), "Pluto Potatoes" (fries), tator tots, and veggies while we had our discussion.  We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion. No thumbs down on this book, but a few to the side.

voting

 The girls love any books with pets, especially dogs.  So the pet show at the end was a hit.  Another favorite part was when Peaches the fish died and was replaced by Peaches the second.  Someone asked what a "milky eyeball" meant in regards to the dead fish.  EUW.  Not our favorite conversation over dinner.

The girls also learned about dyslexia in the discussion (which is something the main character has).

One of the morals of the story (for a Navy family always moving to new places) was "home is where your family is."

After the dinner discussion, prior to the craft, a spontaneous ring around the rosy happened.  These girls love each other ;)

For the craft, the girls got a lump of terra cotta clay to sculpt with.  In the book, Piper Reed sculpts a nose with a pimple on it out of clay to tease her older sister ;)  

One our our close friends' little girl was in the hospital and this sweetie pie wrote a get well message to text to her mama.

This was a great independent project for the girls.  Nice for the mamas to be able to catch up while the girls enjoyed working with the clay.  Host mama says the clay was quite a mess in her sink though.  Beware ;)

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are reading How To Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever- Meeting #10

Our fourth meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  It was a great selection for the month of December and a fun read for the girls.  This was also nostalgic for some of us who read this as kids.  Some of the girls had read other books featuring the awful Herdman children, so they were interested in this book.

The girls snacked on chicken nuggets, fries, cornbread, and fruit while we had our discussion.  We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion.  All the girls were shocked by the Herdmans behavior, most notably burning down the barn with the chemistry set.  The lessons in this book are pretty straightforward and the answers to our general questions were pretty obvious (i.e. "Did anyone change in this book?" and "What was the lesson or moral?").

For the craft, we made Christmas ornaments that look like donuts and cupcakes.  I used this tutorial from YouTube.

Prior to the meeting, I premade the donut and cupcake ornaments and had them ready for the girls to decorate.  I cannot stress how wise this decision was because the foam needs to dry overnight.  Presumably you could do the icing and decorations in one step like she does in the video but I WOULD NOT recommend that.  The caulk took a long time to dry.  Also the foam expanded to make the bottom of the cupcakes round so they wanted to flip over in the muffin tin or resting on a table etc. as the girls were working.  I would have had caulk all over the table!   The last thing I want to do is have friends with caulk on the interior of their cars, etc.  Glitter and glue is way more manageable.  Also we used glitter, seed beads, and sequins to decorate rather than real sugar decor since we wanted to be able to store them and not attract critters.  I painted a layer of modge podge gloss to the icing so it would look shiny and less like toothpaste too ;)  I think it improved the "look."  We also hot glued a loop of ribbon to the back after the girls chose their donut and cupcake so it was hang-able.

One could say it relates to the book because the Herdmans wanted to go to church initially because of the free cake, but that's a stretch.  Mainly, we wanted to do ornaments for a holiday project ;)

supplies for project

After decoration- they were VERY sparkly in person

As the girls were working on the ornaments, they watched the movie of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  It was produced in 1983, is only an hour long, and starts Loretta Swit and a very young Fairuza Balk.  Nostalgia!  It can be purchased on Amazon here.

finishing the movie as craft dry

One of the Mamas with Opinions got these adorable shirts for the girls as a gift.

I love Girls With Opinions (Book Club) est. 2013

These are friendships that will last a lifetime.

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are reading Piper Reed: Clubhouse Queen.

Ramona Quimby, Age 8- Meeting #9

Our third meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  A classic we all remember from our childhoods, and oh so appropriate for a group of 8 year old girls who just started 3rd grade just like Ramona.  This book was a success.  Four girls gave it a thumbs up and two gave it a sideways thumb.   Not bad for this group of critics ;)

The girls snacked on veggies, egg rolls, and sweet and sour chicken while we had our discussion.  We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion.  The girls had a lively discussion about the chapter in which Ramona and Beezus eat tongue.  One of the Girls with Opinions looooves eating tongue tacos.  It made the other girls squirm.  She pointed out that Ramona and Beezus liked it until they discovered what it was ;)  One of our girls loves the concept of Pay It Forward, so it was fun to discuss the "pay it forward" moment in the book when a man bought dinner at a restaurant for the Quimbys anonymously.  The girls all overwhelmingly agreed that the family was very realistic.

Discussion- Thumbs up for tongue tacos!...party of 1.  

The host mama had a variety of art materials including stickers, cardstock paper, markers, and embellishments for the girls to make a "fancy name" picture.  Ramona liked to write her name fancily in the book.  When they were finished, the host mama put the pages in laminating paper.  They were sticky sheets you just place around picture and press down.  The girls really loved this activity.

After lamination, we had the girls show their work.

In case you wondered how hard it was to get all six to smile at once, here is a glimpse at the activity level we're dealing with.

And here's a fun video of the girls goofing around using SlowPro on host mama's phone.

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are reading The Best (Worst) Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.  Another classic ;)

The Mystery of the Singing Ghost- Meeting #8

Our second meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on The Boxcar Children #31:  The Mystery of the Singing Ghost.  A couple of the girls were a little scared to read it, but after being assured that there was no ghost and it was very Scooby Doo whodunit style, they went for it.  This book was a hit.  All the girls gave it a thumbs up which is rare for the Girls With Opinions.  Many thought it was a real page turner.  They had a lot of ideas about the characters motivations, as well as some interesting ideas on how they might change the book.

We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion.  Our fabulous 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Graeve, gave us a sheet of question stems that we also used to guide the discussion.

The weather in Houston cooperated beautifully with a cool Fall evening that fit perfectly with the host mama's plans for a fire.  The girls roasted hot dogs on the fire for dinner during our discussion.  Host mama had a spread of veggies, snacks, and hot dogs as well as some fun blinking ghost rings for the girls to wear.

Roasting hot dogs

Instead of a craft, the girls made S'mores with ghost shaped Peeps.

Ghost peeps- perfect for our theme!

Roasting the ghosts

I didn't take a picture of the ghost rings, but there is one on her finger

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are going back to our Mamas With Opinions roots with Ramona Quimby, Age 8.  A classic!

Breakaway- Meeting #7

Our first meeting of the 2014-15 school year was on our summer selection Breakaway by Andrea Montalbano.  This was our first sports themed book.  We had mixed reactions from the girls.  About half liked it.  Others felt it was too heavy on soccer terminology they didn't know.  This is a very good book for discussing themes of jealousy, competition, and managing girl friendships.  It seemed to bring about a good discussion.  Three of our girls have recently signed up for soccer team so a soccer themed book club was fun for them.

We added one more mother/daughter pair this year so now we have 7 girls and 6 moms.  Six girls came to the meeting (as one mother/daughter pair couldn't make it).

We used our general discussion questions to help guide the discussion.  As usual, one of our girls always figures out a deeper meaning that the adults have missed.  In the story, Lily is suspended from the team for not being a team player for two important games.  "Breakaway" is a soccer term for when there is a sudden attack from a defensive position breaking away from others on the field.  One of our girls also shared that it had the double meaning of representing Lily breaking away from the team when she was suspended.  All the moms had an a-ha moment listening to this 8 year old clue us in on the deeper meaning.  I never get tired of listening to them discuss these books!

Eating hot dogs, fruit, veggies, and goldfish crackers while we discuss

I happened to be at a party store buying things for work and found some adorable soccer themed plates, napkins, and bunting.  As a new soccer mom, I was excited to bling out the first meeting of the year.

I found a package of coconut M&Ms at Walmart with M&Ms only in white, dark brown, and green.  Perfect for this easy soccer themed dessert.

store bought sugar cookies and icing, topped with coconut M&Ms

Our craft was a little more complicated, but with the help of the moms for quality control/accuracy checking, all girls were successful in making a soccer ball safety pin craft.  

For each girl you need 13 safety pins that are size 1 and 1 safety pin that is size 3.  You can find these at any craft store and they are consistently numbered in those sizes.  The linked directions above refer to the inches of the pins, but those sizes are industry standard (i.e. size 3 is a 2 inch long pin).

I grabbed the JPG of the pattern and sized it up on a WORD document and printed one for each girl.  The trick to the project is reminding the girls to work from top to bottom (even though as you add pins they stack bottom to top).  Spatially, it can be a little challenging ;).  

Using pliers to loosen up the loop on the big pin is important so the small ones can loop around and to the other side.  The other trick is to load all pins on the big pin facing out, after it loops around, it will be facing outwards again.  All of this is making little sense I'm sure, but if you try to make a sample prior to doing it with a group of kids, it helps troubleshoot areas where things might be confusing.  

hard at work

finished product next to pattern

Much to the dismay of one of our moms, I've stopped making bottlecap buttons this year ;)  Most of the girls weren't keeping them and it became an added expense I would rather put into materials for a craft, etc.  

We all had a great time!  Next month, we are celebrating Halloween theme with a ghost book ;)