Christmas Book Exchange

We will be having a Christmas book exchange. Each student is asked to bring in a book that any of our classmates would enjoy; it should not be gender specific. The book can be either a gently used book from home or a new book. Students should wrap their books in holiday wrapping with a tag to indicate who it is from. Please have your child bring in their book by Wednesday, December 19th.

Camp Read-a-Lot

Wednesday is the big day we've all been waiting for! Students may bring a sleeping bag or blanket and a pillow. We will have big blocks of time for reading, so the 4th graders should be sure to bring plenty of reading material...novels, magazines, newspaper, informational texts, etc. Of course, our classroom library will be open as well. 

Moravian Love Feast

The 4th grade will have a traditional Moravian Love Feast on Thursday afternoon at 2:00. We learned about this tradition on our trip to Old Salem and look forward to experiencing it together. We will light the traditional candles and enjoy hot apple cider and Moravian cookies. Ask your child about this experience!

Read more about this timely tradition here:
http://www.moravianmusic.org/Moravian%20Lovefeast.html

Moravian Sugar Cake

Our class will make Moravian Sugar Cake on Wednesday during Camp Read-a-lot! It will be a great learning experience to see and smell the yeast and to watch the dough rise. It requires a lot of patience to make homemade bread! Perhaps your family would like to try to make this over the Christmas vacation?

Moravian Sugar Cake

Yield: 4 9x9 cakes

Ingredients

1 package active dry yeast 

1/2 cup warm water 

1 cup plain mashed potatoes 

1 cup sugar 

1/2 cup butter 

1 teaspoon salt 

2 eggs, beaten 

*6 cups flour 

Brown sugar 

Cinnamon 

Butter

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water and add a teaspoon of sugar. Once the yeast has "proved" itself (gotten bubbly), mix potatoes, sugar, butter, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Add yeast mixture and stir well. Stir in eggs and enough flour to make a soft dough -- this can be as little as 5 cups or as much as 6 1/2 depending on the humidity the day you make the cakes.
3. Cover the dough and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
4. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Divide dough in four equal pieces and roll or stretch out to fit into 9x9 greased pans.
5. Cover and let rise again.
6. When doubled, make indentations in the top of each cake about 1 inch apart with your fingers.
7. Sprinkle each cake with brown sugar, about a 1/4 cup per cake, sprinkle with cinnamon, about 1/2 teaspoon per cake, and set small cubes of butter into the holes in each cake.
8. Bake in a 375-degree F oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Liam's Book Talk

Spelling Bee

 We were so proud of our class during the spelling bee on Friday.  Each contestant did his or her best and had good sportsmanship. Congratulations to Scottie for winning our class bee and to Emma for being our runner-up. Scottie will head to the school wide bee on Tuesday morning. Good luck! We'll be cheering for you!

Old Salem Trip

We had a great experience in Old Salem. I hope your student has shared with you the highlights of this trip. We are making postcards in class to reflect on our day.

*If any parents who went on the field trip with us took photographs, please share and I'll post on our class blog along with these shots I took. Thanks!

Growing Crystals

Ask your student to tell you about this process! Next week we will examine these crystals with magnifying glasses to examine their structure.

Rock Cycle Experiment

These whole crayons represent igneous rocks.

These crayon shavings represent sediment created after igneous rock is weathered or eroded.

This is sedimentary rock formed by sediment being compressed together at the bottoms of lakes, creeks, or oceans. 

This is metamorphic rock created from sedimentary rock being under extreme pressure or temperature changes under the crust of the Earth. This change takes thousands and thousands of years. 

Extreme heat melts the metamorphic rock back into lava or magma.

When the magma / lava cools, igneous rock is created again.

Morrighan's Book Talk

I did my book talk on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It is about four kids named Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. It all started when Lucy and Edmund were playing hide and seek, and Lucy found a wardrobe. She opened it, went inside and found herself in Narnia, and met the Faun. There is a Snow Queen who doesn't want to have humans in Narnia. You'll have to read the book to find out more!

Annie's Book Talk

I read The Bad Luck Chain by Sue Wilkowski. I think it is called that because there is a B.L. in all capital letters on the back of the seat. It has two eyes, and there is a star on the seat that looks like a ghost. The three main characters are Addison, Abby, and Sam.

Finn's Book Talk

Mike Lupica's book Game Changers is about a kid named Ben who plays football Ben has never played quarterback, but he has tried out for it for three years but never gotten the spot. He is the best player on the team, but the coach never sees that.

Sydney's Book Talk

Seedfolks is about a bunch of people who come together to turn an empty lot into a garden. It starts with one girl. She is the first one to plant the first seed. Then more and more people help to make it happen. Each chapter introduces a new character and their story.

Ashley's Book Talk

This book is entitled Bliss by Kathryn Little Wood. It is about a family of five who are magical bakers. One day Mayor Hammer comes to their house because her town, Humbleton, has the flu spreading and she know about this family because they have been to the mayor's town before. The parents leave, and while they're gone "Aunt Lily" comes. She is a woman who comes to get the book, and causes chaos in the town. "Aunt Lily" is a bad person from the Albatross side. One day, the town sides of the family had a fight. that caused damage between the sides' relationship.

Math Update

We have started Multiple Towers and Division Stories: Multiplication and Division. In this unit, students will develop strategies for solving multiplication problems with two-digit numbers and deepen their understanding of the operation of division by focusing on the relationship between multiplication and division. Using story contexts and multiple towers, students continue their investigation of the relationship between numbers and their factors. Students practice multiplying by 10 and multiples of 10, break problems into smaller parts that can be multiplied easily, and find the multiples of two-digit numbers. They gain fluency with all multiplication combinations to 12 x 12. Students solve, represent, and discuss division story problems, including some that have a remainder.

Parent Letter

Activities To Try at Home

Old Salem

The 4th grade trip to Old Salem is just around the corner. Mark your calendar for 12/12/12! We will depart from school at 8:15 on the chartered bus. Be sure to note that we will return to campus between 5:15-5:30. We will send a detailed e-mail later this week with all the information you need to know about this learning adventure.

We will spend our Social Studies' time during December learning all about how the town of Salem was settled and about the Moravian religion and culture. We have been learning about the original settlements in Virginia and North Carolina. Ask your 4th grader to share some highlights of this learning with you. Why did the early Carolina farmers have to sell their goods to merchants in Virginia? What were the early relationships like with the Native Americans? What are imports, exports, cash crops, and surplus goods? Why did colonists move to Carolina? Who were the Moravians? Highlights of this study will include making Moravian sugar cake and having our very own Love Feast. Details to come!

Click here to learn more about Old Salem:

Christmas Performances

Last Friday we had the great opportunity to see Charlotte Youth Ballet's Nutcracker performance at CPCC's Halton Theatre. Trinity's own Thomas Young, Tyler Bell, and Hardin Minor were in the company. A real highlight was that several of the dancers came to school earlier in the week to share with us about the ballet and what it is like to be a dancer. Ask your student about Sykario and Morrighan's special contributions!

This Wednesday we are headed to Imaginon for the Children's Theatre performance of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is sure to have us in stitches at the Herdman kids' crazy antics!

Science: Rocks and Minerals

We are having a great time learning about rocks and minerals. We have been exploring the rock cycle to understand the complicated relationship between sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks. We will be conducting many experiments in our classroom to aid in our understanding of rock formations. Throughout the week, ask your student about what we did with crayons, charcoal, beans, and playdough. Many students have been bringing in rocks and we are looking forward to identifying each one. Click on the link below to refresh your memory of rocks! Also, enjoy the "Rock Cycle Song" as a fun way to review the 3 different kinds of rock.

Rock Cycle Song  

(Sing to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat")

SEDIMENTARY rock  

Has been formed in layers  

Often found near water sources  

With fossils from decayers.  

Then there's IGNEOUS rock  

Here since Earth was born  

Molten Lava, cooled and hardened  

That's how it is formed.  

These two types of rocks  

Can also be transformed  

With pressure, heat and chemicals  

METAMORPHIC they'll become.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Supplies Needed

We are in need of some supplies for our rocks and minerals unit. If you have any of these items at your house leftover from a home-improvement or arts-and-crafts project, we would love your leftovers. We are not asking anyone to go out and buy anything, just to share if you have any remnant materials at your house.

Tiles (approximately 4" x 4" x 1") 
Alabaster Tiles
Granite Tiles
Limestone Tiles
Marble Tiles
Pumice Tiles
Soapstone Tiles

Fabric
Terry Fabric (100% cotton, any color)
Twill Fabric (100% cotton, any color)

Writers' Workshop Update

 I couldn't be prouder of the great work our class has done with our second published narratives. We spent a great deal of time talking about the structure of stories and used a 5-part timeline to plan our writing. We are learning that most of the hard work in writing happens after you write your first draft. The magic happens in the revision process. Ask your student to tell you about the following revision strategies.

1. Look to S T R E T C H out the shorter sections
2. Fix any "plot holes"
3. Use specific dialogue that is believable for your characters
4. SHOW, don't TELL
5. Include SENSORY details
6. Use strong verbs...no "said" or "went"

We will have an in-class writing celebration on Tuesday, November 20. I hope that you will enjoy celebrating your child's writing during your student-led conference. We are sending home the timelines and drafts so that you will be able to see how your 4th grader worked to revise and edit his/her writing.

Portfolios and Student-led Conferences

I know you are looking forward to sitting down with your 4th grader and celebrating his or her academic accomplishments. The portfolios will be full of each student's evaluations and goal setting along with selected work from each subject area. Please have your 4th grader return the portfolio some time the week after Thanksgiving. The following advice comes from Chris Weiss's e-mail: 

Here are some tips that may prove helpful to you during this meeting with your child:

1. Let your child be in charge, ask clarifying questions, and focus on the work and the student’s growth—think big picture.  

1. Listen to your child’s self-report and reflections.  Ask supportive questions to gain clarity.
2. By the end of the conference help your child have a clear and realistic assessment of themselves along with a shared plan for approaching the trimester ahead.

Talking Points:

1. What I think I hear you saying is…
2. You seem to really enjoy…Why do you think that is?
3. You seem to be having a difficult time with….Why do you think that is?
4. If you know why…is happening, what would be a possible solution?
5. Tell me what is the most important thing that you learned in…
6. What is your favorite time during the school day and why?

Thank you!

I can't imagine a better way to have spent my birthday than with our wonderful class! Thank you so very much for the beautiful flowers and sweet cards. Your precious children and this wonderful school are such tremendous blessings in my life!

Scottie's Book Talk

A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass

This book is about a 13-year-old girl named Mia Winchell. Mia has an exceptional ability called synesthesia. It is where sounds, words, and letters have color for her. That is how she got her cat Mango's name. This book is a fun-filled and if you read it, I think it will change your life.

Sammy's Book Talk

The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer

This is the best book ever! It's about a brother, Conner, and a sister, Alex, who are twins and fall into the fairy tale world. They meet someone who tells them about a spell where you can make one wish called The Wishing Spell. They go on amazing adventures and see all the fairy tale world. The spell can only be used once more, and someone else is also looking for it, and you also figure something out about their dad that is very surprising. I really recommend this book!!

NCAIS Conference

Last Friday morning as your children were nestled in their beds enjoying a day off from school, the Trinity faculty and staff boarded a bus at 6:15 am (yikes!) and cruised up 85-North to Forsyth Country Day School in Winston-Salem. We went to attend the North Carolina Association of Independent School's biennial teacher conference. The theme for the conference was "Back to the Future: Sustaining Tradition, Promoting Innovation." Pat Bassett, president of NAIS, was the keynote speaker.He emphasized the Five C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Character.  I was extremely proud of Trinity as I listened to his presentation and honestly believe that we are ahead of the game in our teaching approach and philosophy. 

After the keynote speaker, we were able to go to four sessions of our choice. Mr. Merritt and I attended workshops on topics including current brain research, math differentiation, entrepreneurship in schools, service learning, engineering, digital storytelling, twice exceptional students, and developing cyber-smart kids. It was a day full of learning for us and we are excited to bring back our new knowledge and ideas to our classroom. 

Word Study Update

In addition to our word sort work, we have started to work on grammar skills. The students are working to identify what makes a sentence a sentence. It must have a subject, a predicate, and must communicate a complete thought. We are also reviewing the different types of sentences: statement, command, question, and exclamation. Identifying simple subjects and simple predicates is also part of our work.We will continue with this work throughout the year and ensure that the students have a solid grammatical foundation.

New Science Unit: Rocks and Engineering

Our class is beginning an engineering unit called Materials Engineering: Replicating Artifacts, which is part of the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) curriculum developed by the Museum of Science, Boston.  EiE is a curricular program that integrates the science students are already learning in school with engineering design. Through this unit students will use what they learn about the science of rocks to design and improve a replica of an artifact. The unit will begin with a story about twin girls from Russia who solve a similar engineering design challenge.

There are many reasons to introduce children to engineering in elementary school:

• Engineering projects integrate other disciplines. Engaging students in hands-on, real-world engineering experiences can enliven math, science and other content areas.
• Engineering fosters problem-solving skills, including problem formulation, iteration  and testing of alternative solutions.
• Children are fascinated with building and with taking things apart to see how they work. By encouraging these explorations in elementary school, we can keep these interests alive. Describing their activities as "engineering" when children are engaged in the natural design process can help them develop positive associations with engineering, and increase their desire to pursue such activities in the future.
• Engineering and technological literacy are necessary for the 21st century.  As our society increasingly depends on engineering and technology, our citizens need to understand these fields.

If you have expertise about the science, field of engineering, or have any general questions or comments about the engineering and design unit we are about to begin, please let us know. 

EiE: What is it?

To learn more about EiE, please visit the following link:

Engineering is Elementary®

Report Cards and Portfolios

Can you believe the first trimester is almost over? Your student will bring home his/her report card this Friday afternoon. Students will be busy over the next week preparing a portfolio of selected work from our first trimester. Additionally they will reflect on their strengths and accomplishments in each subject area as well as to set goals for the upcoming trimester. We will send home portfolios on Tuesday, November 20. Each family will find a spot of time to have a student led conference at home for your child to share his/her work. We will send home more specific guidelines closer to the time.

Sheila Turnage

Sheila Turnage will talk with TES 4th graders on Tuesday, November 13. Ask your student what he/she learned about the writing process from our guest author.

"Sheila Turnage lives on a farm in North Carolina with her husband, a blind dog and an ill-tempered cat.  A native North Carolinian, she's spent most of her life surrounded by the poetry and humor of rural NC. She writes books, articles and poems, and enjoys writing about the South in general and NC in particular. Her books include Compass American Guides: North Carolina and Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Three Times Lucky is her first novel for kids. It's set in the fictitious town of Tupelo Landing, North Carolina - population 148 minus one (murder)."                                   

                                         -From Amazon.com 

                                        -information provided by author

TES Book Fair

Monday, November 12

Cardinal Lanes Book Talk in our classroom

Monday, November 19 from 12:30-1:00
Our class will visit the Book Fair.
Please send in money if you wish.

Will's Book Talk

The Twits by Roald Dahl

At the beginning of the story, Mr. Twit and Mrs. Twit do a lot of pranks on each other. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they have bird pie. They love bird pie. Mr. Twit puts the stickiest glue on the tree because when the birds sit on the branches and their feet get stuck, Mr. Twit shoots the birds. The couple has a family of monkeys. They make them sit on their heads all day. The monkeys do not like standing on their heads. They speak African, and they try to tell the birds not to sit on the branches. One day, an African bird came across the yards and the monkeys yelled at the bird. They said to tell all the birds to not sit on the tree and to sit on the monkey's cage. It was Tuesday, and he saw all the birds sitting on the cage. He got so angry! The next day, he put the glue on the monkey's cage. Then all the birds sat on the tree. Now he was really angry. They monkeys decided to do a prank. You will have to read the book to find out more.

Keith's Book Talk

I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney. In fact, I'm reading the whole series. The main character is Greg H. He is a wimpy kid. Wimpy means he can't stand up for himself. I like Greg because he's funny and he's always getting himself embarrassed. When you read the books, you're actually reading his diary. So you read about his day, feelings, emotions, friends, and family. You also see his funny pictures. The Last Straw is about when Greg's dad tries to send Greg to military school. It's really funny. I highly recommend it.

North Carolina

In addition to all of our research about the candidates and the election, we are still working on learning more about our state. This week we are going to focus on famous sites in each region. We are using the VisitNC website to help us search by region for interesting places that are an important part of our cultural heritage. Mr. Merritt showed the class how to research the Alamance Battlefield and to write some important facts about it from the website. After the election, we will look again at the three branches of the North Carolina government and update our prior knowledge and learn a bit about our newly elected officials. From there, we will do research on some of the major industries that drive our state economy, as well as our agricultural resources. 

Parent Workshop

I wanted to share information with you about Celebrate Calm, a workshop offered by the Fletcher School's Rankin Institute. They offer a great variety of parent and educator workshops throughout the year. I've been to many of them through the years and have always been impressed with the quality of the speakers and program. I have heard that this is supposed to be an especially great program, and I'm planning to attend.

Celebrate Calm This exciting workshop, perfect for parents and teachers of all ages, will give strategies to stop power struggles; eliminate defiance, disrespect, and sibling fights; improve focus, attention, and behavior in school; as well as create stress-free mornings, homework time, and bedtime. Registration is required.  We are offering this workshop two different times: To register for the morning session from 8:30am - 10:30am, please click HERE. To register for the evening session from 7:00pm - 9:00pm, please click HERE.

Where & When The Fletcher School 8500 Sardis Road Charlotte, North Carolina 28270 Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Faith Studies Homework

Mr. Burton asked me to post this on our blog:

This week in Faith Studies we are studying the adventures of the prophet Elijah. We'll be looking at 1 Kings 16-19 in The Action Bible. Please feel free to read the story with your children at home. 

Below you will find 25 keywords from the story. For our next class on November 12, students need to create a song that would explain Elijah's story to someone who had not heard it before. They do not need to use all the words in the list (some of them have even created their own list!) but can feel free to use the list as a starting point. 

Words for song

1. kingdom
2. Israel
3. Ahab
4. Jezebel
5. Baal
6. queen
7. temples
8. Elijah
9. drought
10. ravens
11. Obadiah
12. widow
13. famine
14. Mount Carmel
15. bulls
16. fire
17. prophets
18. lightning
19. rain
20. miracle
21. despair
22. mountain
23. earthquake
24. storm
25. whisper

Our Current Read-Aloud: Wonder

Has your 4th grader told you about our current read-aloud book? Wonder by R.J. Palacio is an amazing book! It is beautiful in so many ways and is the perfect connection with our service learning partnership at Metro.

Here is the link to a great review from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/books/review/wonder-by-r-j-palacio.html?_r=0

Typing Club

I hope that each of you received the e-mail from Chris Weiss and Dee Lanier about our new keyboarding work in the Lower School. Tuesday, we will glue a reminder slip into your student's agenda that will provide information on how to practice their keyboarding skills at home. It will include the website address, your child's user name, and his/her password. We will work to have time in class each week to work in Typing Club and want to remind you that your student is also expected to practice at home 2-3 times each week. Please refer to the aforementioned letter for specific details.

Our goal for the 4th graders is that by the end of the year, they will reach the following benchmarks:
Words per Minute: 15-25
Accuracy: 90%

         

Readers' Workshop: Following Characters into Meaning

Our work in Readers' Workshop is shifting to focus on character study. We are inviting our readers to dive head first into the worlds of the books they are reading - and to do so wearing the shoes of the characters who inhabit those worlds. By doing this work, readers will develop  their skills at predicting, envisioning, and reading with fluency. We will work to notice characters' personality quirks and habits, inferring to develop ideas about characters' traits, motivations, troubles, changes, and lessons.

Great questions to ask you 4th grader about their reading at home are:

• What kind of person is your character? How do you know?
• Do you like him/her? Why?
• Why did the character do that? Where could you see parts that led up to this?
• Why is the character feeling that way? Are there clues?
• Do you think he/she did the right thing? How does it compare to what another character might do?
• What do you think will happen next, based on what you know about the character so far?

Describing the Shape of Data: Unit 2

After taking our Unit 1 math test on Monday, we will launch Describing the Shape of Data on Tuesday.

These are the key math focus points in this unit:
*Representing data
*Describing, summarizing, and comparing data
*Analyzing and interpreting data
*Designing and carrying out an investigation
*Describing the probability of an event

Please read the parent letters for more information on our upcoming unit:

Family Letter about the Mathematics in this Unit

Activities To Try At Home

Halloween

Good news! We will not assign any homework on Halloween. This is our treat to our favorite 4th grade trick-or-treaters! Students should come dressed in their uniform on Wednesday - no costumes! We will have a class celebration at the end of the day working on our Monster Match writing activity and having a healthy snack. Hope that the "Frankenstorm" doesn't put a damper on the fun your family has planned.

The Monster Match

Ask your student about the Monster Match! We asked the students to imagine a monster. After creating a drawing of that monster, they were asked to write a descriptive paragraph describing every physical detail about how their monster looks. On Halloween afternoon we will exchange Monster Match writing. Each student will receive another student's writing and have to sketch that monster based on the details included in the writing. It is such fun to see if you were able to thoroughly describe your monster well enough that someone else could envision it. This is great opportunity to work on descriptive writing in a fun way!

Election Work continued....

The countdown is on! Election Day 2012 will be here in the blink of an eye. Last week students worked to understand the important issues in this election and where each of the candidates stood on them.  Students analyzed taxes, economy/jobs, health care, education, and defense. We used the two websites below to research the information and then analyzed the information using a graphic organizer.

https://sites.google.com/site/meetthecandidates2012/

http://wrelections.so-studios.com/issue-guides/education

This week students will learn more about the life and service of each candidate. We will watch a short video on Obama and Romney and then read a condensed biography of their lives. Students will then be asked to write an editorial endorsing their candidate. They will be asked to back up their choice using specific reasons from the research they have done. This will be a great opportunity to think about the qualities of persuasive writing.

Election

It is hard to believe that Election Day is only two weeks away. We will spend our Social Studies' time learning about the Executive Branch of government, the election process, and the electoral college. Students will also have time to learn more about President Barrack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney and their stances on the main political issues.

Mr. Smith's 7th grade class is going to have all students in the school register to vote and then participate in a mock election on November 6.

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mr. Dia

Mr. Dia began visiting us on Wednesday afternoons to share his Gullah / Geechee heritage. He is using the storytelling medium to share his cultural history.  We will continue to welcome Mr. Dia into our classroom on Wednesday afternoons. Mr. Dia is a Middle School Language Arts teacher who received a Light the Fire grant this summer to study the Gullah / Geechee culture. Occasionally he'll bring along middle school social studies teacher, Grady Smith, to help spin his tales. 

Emma's Book Talk

I did my book talk on The Mystery of the Biltmore House by Carole Marsh. It is about four kids: Stacy, Wendy, Trent, and Michael. Their parents are at a writing workshop at  the Biltmore House. Napoleon's  chess set has gone missing, and it is Stacy's job to find it. The other three just tag along and act like they are interested. This book is full of clues and even missing children! I highly recommend it!

Hannah's Book Talk

I chose The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White because it ties in with the Metro School. Louis the swan isn't like the others, and he can't speak or talk like the other geese.  Sam, a boy who loves nature, was with his dad in Canada traveling.  Sam sat on a log and watched the swans when they were born. Louis and Sam became best friends and have all these adventures together. So, if you really like animals and nature, I highly recommend this book to you.

Sykario's Book Talk

Great Moments in Basketball History by Matt Christopher is about old legends like MJ, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Dr. J. It is also about new players like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Shaquille O'Neal. it takes hard work to be as great as some of these players. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in one game. MJ won six championship games. I learned those things and many more in this book. My book was fun to read and it is very popular.

Mac's Book Talk

I picked Frindle by Andrew Clements for my book talk. This book is about a fifth grade boy named Nick Allen. He is a really creative boy and he makes up a new word called "frindle" that means pen. One of my favorite parts is when Mrs. Granger makes everyone who says the word "frindle" write, "I'm writing this punishment with a pen" one hundred times because she loves the dictionary so much. I think you should read the book.