We began our book club with a little snack of egg salad sandwiches, pickles, and Dump Punch, the same menu as India Opal's party at the end of the book. Apparently pickles are a favorite of 4th and 5th graders! Who knew? Even the egg salad sandwiches were consumed fairly quickly.
We are hoping to participate in the 90 Second Newbery Film Festival at the end of the year, so we started our book club out by reading a play that summarized the novel. We talked a bit about characters that were left out of the summary and what they liked and didn't like about it. We then broke into smaller groups and discussed why we liked the title and how it fit the book. Students also discussed the theme of friendship and tried to come up with other "big idea" themes that applied to the book.
Afterwards, student chose an activity to complete. Because Opal had a list of the 10 things she knew about her mother, students came up with a 10 Things list about themselves. What 10 things do you think people would remember about you? Other students chose to create a character collage by either drawing pictures or cutting out magazine pictures to represent their chosen character!