I am excited to share with you a few of the creative educational activities at Liberty Union-Thurston Elementary School in Baltimore, Ohio. These projects were done in relationship to my books in advance of my 2-day visit to their schools. They’ve had some great authors, including Ron Hirschi, who did stream walks with them some years ago. (In DECEMBER, they said. Cold toes but worth it.) It seems they have an ongoing nature and stream study in this school. Hooray! Kids will learn so much from seeing nature and science in action.

Ah, the halls were festooned with beautiful bumblebees and flowers. A shiny paper mirror said “Look here to see the author.” How wonderful for each student to see a young author in themselves.  We had some of the first art celebration of He’s a Howler: a howler paper quilt. Beautiful!

Many of the students were studying geography. They had done drawings and short writing pieces about the features of continents to go with my continent books.

One classroom did a hilarious counting riff on One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab. They did counting by eyes.

One class analyzed and classified the information in Bumblebee Queen.

Another class created new versions of the fish chant but with ocean fish. They created fish cutouts, wrote reports about features and behavior. Then they drew a fanciful sea/town scene where the fish swam. It was nonfiction with a visual fiction twist, in the spirit of Trout, Trout, Trout. Hooray!

One of my favorites was the bird poetry written by the fourth graders. Using Vulture View as a model, the teacher had created a form with key words and phrases from Vulture View. Students each drew a bird species and filled in what that bird would or would not eat and how it would move. Brilliant.

A highlight of my visit was two small sessions with young authors and illustrators. I will never forget my discussions with them! I hope that Reading Rainbow Book entry goes well.

This is a fine school with energetic educators and students that are excited to learn. The students were well prepared for my visit and worked well together in the assembly setting. The faculty welcomed me. Students and staff have much to be proud of; together they have made an environment for learning. As an author, it was a pleasure to visit.

Thank you, librarian Ms. Brown, for bringing me in to share this joyful place with you.

For 20  years United Through Reading has been bringing families together by having parents and grandparents read books on tape and DVD so their child can see/hear their parent sharing something good. This program helps incarcerated parents, military parents, and grandparents who live far away from their children. What a cool program! I found it because a google alert told me that Vulture View was on their recommended list. Hooray for all that United Through Reading does!

http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/about/greattransitionalbooks_justthefacts.php

“We LOVE your stories. I am obessed with the story Vulture View, and built a whole lesson around it, teaching kids all sorts of weird stuff about the adaptations of vultures. We even built our own models of carrion and hid them around the forest while the vultures (my co-teacher and I) hunted for them! It was one of the best lessons we’ve taught and really stuck with the kids.”

This quote is from Chrissy Larson, the teacher Balsam of the Nuts about Nature Preschool run by the   Portland Environmental Education Department. She wrote to me this week. Below are some photos she took of her activities. (more…)

Wyoming Reads!  Thanks to the Sue Jorgensen Library Foundation, approximately 7,000 Wyoming 1st Graders will receive a free hardback book. They can choose from six books and one of them is Vulture View! They will receive the books at one of 35 celebrations on May 19th. 

Mrs. Leaphart’s and Mrs. Bates’ Class did some extraordinary writing inspired by the structure of Vulture View and Trout, Trout, Trout: a Fish Chant.

These Hamilton Traditional School students explored what they knew about turkeys and turkey vultures. 

This has been a great year. VULTURE VIEW was named a Theodor Geisel Honor book by the American Library Association.

See the lovely Geisel Honor Sticker?

This relatively new award is named after Dr. Seuss and it honors both the text and illustrations of books geared for children beginning to read. I am thrilled and so happy for my work to be paired with the great illustrations done by Steve Jenkins. I attended the ALA national conference in Anaheim to accept the Honor Award.   (more…)

Vulture View

English/Language Arts Standards

Kindergarten

K.1.1 Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.

K.1.2 Follow words from left to right and from top to bottom on the printed page.

K.1.3 Understand that printed materials provide information.

K.1.4 Recognize that sentences in print are made up of separate words. (more…)

Let’s begin our physical science storytime. Physical science studies the non-living world around us: air, water, wind, rock, minerals, glaciers, all sorts of things. But these non-living parts of our world also play a big part in our lives, and other animals’ lives, too. So, we’ll begin with an animal you might have seen…vultures! (more…)