I have teamed up with Charlesbridge publishing, the publisher of this book, and created the Be a Stream Hero contest. The winner of the contest wins a school visit from me.

In fact, in honor of Trout Are Made of Trees, Charlesbridge publishing staff spent a day cleaning up the Charles river! (more…)

How can a leaf become a fish? Join two young children and two adults to find out, as they observe life in and around a stream. Energetic collage art and simple, lyrical text depict the ways plants and animals are connected in the food web. (more…)

School Visit Activities

From visits 2006 and earlier. See more recent posts for photos of other great activities, like the one where there were construction paper ants with the teacher’s photo heads marching all over the school. Too hilarious!

By the way, the Pettisville, OH kids dancing in the photo are performing their rendition of “The Ants Go Marching…”

Harrison, that extraordinary school in South Bend, had these activities!

Wow, Knox County, OH schools had fun with my books!. What extraordinary teachers and students. The countryside near there is beautiful, too.

2007 promises to be a big year, packed with school visits, conference appearances, and three yummy new books:

March Release: HUSH LITTLE PUPPY, illustrated by Susan Winters (Holt) This is a beautiful bedtime book about a little boy trying to get his puppy to sleep. The art by British illustrator Susan Winter is just perfect. 

October Release: BIRD, BIRD, BIRD: A CHIRPING CHANT illustrated by Gary Locke (NorthWord) Gary created art that is laugh out loud hilarious. (more…)

Have the children use what they observe by looking and listening to make a map of their surroundings . . . the school, the schoolyard, the neighborhood, maybe the entire city!

Before or after a study of mapping, or a study of human explorers/adventurers, you might want to have kids talk about great journeys. Read Home At Last to introduce journeys. Using information from books or the web, look at maps to see where animals migrate.

The Arctic tern in the book, a bird which travels from Antarctica to the Arctic, is also a great introduction to these regions and their differences. The bird spends summer in both places.

Sea Turtles are animals that make tremendous journeys
too!

And then those are those smaller journeys, through time and small spaces. Listen to this story and find the journeys and pathways followed by bumblebees.