Eric Wight Author Visit!

Last year, our elementary school paired with a few other schools around town to bring Kevin O'Malley to our campus to chat, perform, inspire, and just be a little silly with our students!  :)  THIS year, we were blessed to have another author visit from the chapter book author and illustrator, Eric Wight.  For those of you unfamiliar, he is the creator of the "Frankie Pickle" series. 

School Library Journal describes his first book: "Franklin Lorenzo Piccolini is a fourth grader with a big imagination and an alter ego named Frankie Pickle, an amalgam of pop-culture icons from Indiana Jones to Batman. His messy room spawns an adventure that ends when the filth is too much even for him. Wight matches a silly story to black-and-white cartoon graphics in a chapter-book format. Readers who have graduated from Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants and Ricky Ricotta series (both Scholastic) will be charmed by this longer story." –Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC

Well, not only does the main character in Eric Wight's chapter book series have a huge imagination filled with creativity, but the author himself most certainly does, too!  In our hour long, grade level presentation, Mr. Wight not only told the students about himself and his life, but he also truly inspired the students to write themselves by sharing his experiences and his writing styles and techniques!  He made it seem SO very fun and effortless, that we all left with a new story frame/outline to help us create our own, new story, but also with a new outlook on writing for most of my kiddos! 

The new story idea, you ask?  Well, it's none other than "Frankie the Hilarious Hippo"! 

Just like Kevin O'Malley, Eric Wight used the students' ideas to come up with this new, outrageous story line/knock-off of Frankie.  Our class was so proud to help focus the new character around none other than a hippo (our class "mascot")!  Who knows, after all his fun and kooky stories, maybe Frankie as a hippo could be next?!  I mean, it's not too far off from some of his other tales...

Anyways, of course, after hour of fun inspiration, we just HAD to pose with our newest favorite author!

So, 2 visits in 2 years...LOVE it!  How about you?  Do you have author visits?  If so, who have you seen in person?  I'd love to hear about it!  :)

Gail Gibbons and Seymour Simon (AND A GIVEAWAY!!!)

As you know, we're into our "Author's Study" unit at the moment.  We always have done a week about Gail Gibbons-- let's face it, the woman is an amazing writer, and her books are SO very 2nd grade "friendly".  The kiddos LOVE to read her books, and they can learn lots of facts without feeling so overwhelmed with a non-fiction book. 
Each year, along with studying her in "Reading", we also use her an inspiration in our writing.  It is very simple for students to mimic her page layout, with a few lines of factual text and the bottom, an accurate illustration at the top, with a caption, and of course, heading!  The page we use is the single page "Authors as Mentors: Write Like Gail Gibbons" sheet that you can see and download from TpT.  It is a stress free (and fun) assignment that students can easily complete in one week!  :)

This year, though, we also threw in Seymour Simon to the week's studies.  He, too, is a great non-fiction author, and while his books differ in the amount of text (and information!) and the photographs, it's still nice to let students see the varying non-fiction texts. 

In fact, my students completed great venn diagrams comparing and contrasting the two authors (very easily on their own, too, I might add!). 

 

ANNNND, the best part of the week, you may ask?  WEEEELLLLL, it HAS to be the fact that reading, writing, AND social studies/science were all so easily integrated!  That's right...our "Natural Disasters/Natural Hazards" unit fit so well in with reading Gail Gibbons and Seymour Simon books, since they both have several non-fiction texts about topics such as hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.


So, on top of having the phenominal books to get information out of, my students could then apply that information to many of the graphic organizers in my Natural Disaster Pack!  How amazing is that?  Let me just say, it totally made for many seamless transitions throughout the week, and my students loved every minute of it!

Okay, you've made it through the end...now the fun part: the giveaway!!!  The FIRST TWO PEOPLE to leave a comment about their favorite Gail Gibbons book to read to their class (or to use while teaching) will win a FREE copy of the "Authors as Mentors: Write Like Gail Gibbons" handout.  Simply remember to include your email at the bottom of your coment, and I'll try to get it to you ASAP!  :)

Happy Teaching and Learning!!!

Robert Munsch's Paper Bag Princess "Craftivity"

Hi sweet friends (or should I say, strangers?)!  I know it's been a while, but as I've posted before, for some reason this year has been a whirlwind of hustle and bustle, and now, just as I blink my eyes, it's already mid-April!!!  How crazy is that?!

I wanted to share a SUPER cutesy "craftivity" that is easy, fun, and cheap!  It can work for many grade levels, and I guarantee your kiddos will love it.  So what is it you ask?  Well didn't you read my title, silly?  :)  It's a great project using Robert Munsch's Paper Bag Princess story as a "springboard".

For the past few weeks, we've been in our "Author's Study" unit in our curriculum.  Last week, we focused on the amazing children's author, Robert Munsch.  His stories are always a hit, and the students always enjoy learning about him and reading his books!

After reading the story, The Paper Bag Princess, my kiddos completed a "4 Square" about the characters, setting, problem/solution, and their favorite part.  I used the printable from my Robert Munsch Author Study Pack, but technically you could just use any kind of notebook paper or plain paper.  Then, we cut out around the edges and glued it to the back side of a paper grocery bag from our local store. 

Next step?  Cutting up the front, cutting out a "neck hole", and cutting out 2 "arm holes".  Since we're in 2nd grade, and the latter part of 2nd grade I might add, my kiddos are a tad too big to fit in the paper bags as "dresses"...sooo we decided to make them more like vests!  (Which of course, the kids got a kick out of, because it immediately reminded them of Thanksgiving...)  :)  Anywho, finally they got to decorate their bag dresses with things from the story, maybe their favorite part, their favorite characters, etc. etc., and add a  "crown" (sentence strip) with the title of the book.

And that's it!  A super fun, easy, yet creative (and applicable!) "craftivity" to accompany Robert Munsch's story The Paper Bag Princess!

Oh, I almost forgot...the last step?  Show off the cute new "duds"!

(One final silly picture to round out this post...hope it puts a smile on your face!)

Have a fabulous rest of the weekend, and a great week next week!  :)

Kevin O'Malley Author Visit!

It has been over a week since my last blog post!  I'm pretty sure I've been going through withdrawls!  I know we ALL are going through the hectic end-of-year craziness, but to top that off, my computer was sick AND my blogger account was sick!  (I kept getting CRAZY error codes, and I couldn't even read anyone elses pages, much less post to my own page!)

So now that everything seeeeems to be up and working (fingers crossed), let me give you a quick, fun, short Sunday night post!  On Friday, the wonderful author Kevin O'Malley visited our school.  He is so inspiring and SO funny to listen to.  He talked with our students a little bit, then created a "fractured" fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk with them!  He even let them share their ideas for bits and pieces of the story.  Very cute and very patient!  We ended up with "Jackie and the Highrise"!  While Kevin O'Malley was creating and telling the creative story, he was drawing, too!  (So very talented!)

Here are a few fun pictures I thought I'd share with you!

He was SO full of energy and acted SO happy to be there, that our students (and all the teachers) couldn't help but to love him!  I couldn't even imagine "performing" like he did 4 times in a day...I'd be EXHAUSTED!!!

At the end, he had a quick Q&A, and let a few kiddos ask him some questions.  (Then our class snuck in a group picture!  But shhh....don't tell anyone!!!) 

Best part you ask?  Well it was definitely when he drew our class a custom, signed picture of a HIPPO (our class "theme")!  My students pretty much went bonkers when he walked into our room during math with the picture on a big piece of chart paper.  (Okay, I'll admit...I was a little bonkers, too!)  I wish I would have snapped a picture of that for you all to see, but maybe tomorrow I can post the picture!  I'm so excited to have it, and I've been debating all weekend, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get it framed this week!  (because honestly...how many teachers can say they own a hippo drawn by Kevin O'Malley?!?)  :)

Hope everyone's had a great week!  Looking forward to Monday...now that I'm back on and can read everyone's posts, I see the countdown has begun...only 14 more days for me!!!  Tick, tock, tick, tock... (but I'm not overjoyed just yet...still have to get through all the insane "end-of-year chores" up at school....plus I'll miss all my chillens....but goodness me, I'm ready for the SUMMER!!!)

HAPPY SUNDAY!!!  Have a wonderful evening!  :)

The Boxcar Children Craftivity!

We've been in our "Author Study" unit for a few weeks now, and lately, we've been focusing on Gertrude Chandler Warner-- the author of The Boxcar Children series! 

I LOVE Mrs. Warner for numerous reasons...the first of which: she was a teacher!  Secondly, she wrote these books for CHILDREN to ENJOY reading, back in a time when there weren't many fun and exciting chapter books for kids!  (Did you know that lots of schools and librarys actually frowned upon her books because of the "adventures" of unsupervised children?!  Crazy!!)

So today, my class did a super fun Boxcar Children activity (really a "craftivity") with The Boxcar Children, Book #1!  I like to call it "A Look Into The Boxcar Children"!  (As a side note, you can use this with ANY of the Boxcar Children books, but my class has just started with #1!)

We began with a copied red "boxcar", which my kiddos colored the roof of with their black crayon.

Then, we cut them out carefully around the edges!

Next, we cut out our "title" to use as the door!  Students added handles and knobs, since there's not one on there.  I even had a fun friend ask if he could put a "keypad lock", because he didn't want anyone to get into his!  (got to love the sense of humor!).  After the door, we cut out our wheels and glued them on! 

Finally, my kiddos got a sheet of lined "boxcar" paper to do their actual reading assignment with!  I had them "retell" the story to me so far  (we haven't QUITE finished the first book yet).  They really gave great details, and went ABOVE AND BEYOND in describing the setting, because "after all, Ms. Hubbard, we ARE looking INSIDE the boxcar!" (again, got to love the humor!)

I was talking to my team this afternoon about this fun project, and the one thing I really loved about it was the fact that my KIDS loved it!  They probably could have had the exact same prompt to write about in our Reading Notebooks, but they wrote so much more because it was a fun and cute new project!  So exciting!

AND, since it went so well, I just HAD to compile it all into a file to share with other teachers!  I've posted in on TpT, and I'm about to post it on TN (which btw, have you seen the new site?!  Ah-mazing!). 

You know how much I love all of you guys, though, SO here's my GIVEAWAY for the evening:  Be the first follower to comment below with the names of the 4 children in the Boxcar Children series, and I will GIVE you my new craftivity pack for free! :)

I hope everyone had a GREAT week, and I hope you will have an even better weekend!  Be sure to stop back by in the next few days for some BIG changes and maybe even a BIG, HUMONGO, ENORMOUS giveaway...hint hint...  :)

A Finished Robert Munsch Pack!

Roll out the red carpet and get the fancy horns ready!!!!  I've finally managed to finish compiling all my Robert Munsch resources into one 16 page "Let's Learn About Robert Munsch" Pack!  Yes, yes, I squeezed work in, here and there, between a trip to the grocery store, hanging a bathroom cabinet, grading papers, weeding some flower beds, and mowing the yard.  (Making this pack was actually my DOWN time, believe it or not!)

So, before I go on, I MUST tell you that I contacted Robert Munsch himself, and he forwarded me on to his "people" (wouldn't it be nice if we had "people", too?).  My NEW pack does NOT have specific books in it, due to Copyrights and such.  It DOES have lots of fun activities and printables to use with an author study, though. 

*As a side note, to any teacher/creators out there- I've really learned alot about Copyrights and such over the past few weeks.  It's easy to want to sell and share all that we have created, but for some specific things, or books, or people, or games, or ___ (you get my drift) that are Copyrighted, we must "tweak" some things  before we put them online.  I know there's a huge difference between using things only in your classroom and posting things online for the whole world to see/use!!! :)

So anyways, here's a "sneak" preview of my Robert Munsch resource pack.  It is 16 pages (with instructions) of Robert Munsch worksheets and activities such as the online author study, 2 story elements pages, 2 comparing/contrasting pages, 1 author portrait page, and 2 reflection worksheets.

I will be giving away 1 full pack on Tuesday morning, (hopefully before I head off to school!!).  Here are 3 different ways to snag some entries.  Make sure to include your email each time you comment!

1. Follow my blog.  If you do already, great!  Then, leave one comment saying that you follow!
2. Follow my TpT store.  Leave a comment staying that you have followed my store!
3. Comment below, telling me your favorite Robert Munsch book AND how (or if) you use him in your classroom!

I will use the random.org random number generator Tuesday morning to choose my winner!  I know it's a short "deadline", and I don't count on having lots of entries (so, be sure to enter all 3 ways to REALLY boost your odds!). 

If you don't win, this pack will also be listed on sale at my TpT store all next week!  Stop by to check it out!

Robert Munsch-a-Palooza!

So, as I promised, here is some more of the wonderful Robert Munsch study that my kiddos have been so enamored with this week!  If you've never used him for an author study, I HIGHLY recommend it!  The students LOVE him and can easily relate and describe him...see?

Yes, I love my Anchor Charts!!!

So, here are our "Studying Robert Munsch" folders we created back on Monday to keep all of our Author Study goodies in one place!  They're REALLY fancy...let me warn you...I spent a lot of time and money on them....(not really, though, at all)...Yes, they're just a sheet of paper, folded in half and written on. :)  Simple, yet effective!

Inside the folder, we have our Robert Munsch Online Author Study from Monday, a few story element 4 squares from Tuesday and Wednesday, a morning message "reflection" page, and then our Venn Diagram from today!

This week has led us to describe similarities and differences of several works by the same author.   While I think reading Robert Munsch books is great, and I think filling out a "4 square" of Robert Munsch's Story Elements serves a wonderful purpose, Comparing and Contrasting Robert Munsch's stories is, by far, my favorite part of this unit.  It definitely allows students to THINK!  (If you or your district is big on Bloom's, this lets students move past "understanding" the story elements and moves WAY up to "analyzing" by distinguishing between similarities and differences!) 

We start by creating a class list of similarities and differences in the 2 Robert Munsch books we read on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Today it took a little while to "warm up" the ideas, but once they started, they were flowing!  (I normally find that kids find more similarities, but today, differences seemed to be easier.  Go figure.)  This "fancy" list is just a plain, straight forward T-Chart.  We write together, me in my Reading Notebook, and the students in theirs.  They come up with the ideas, and we record together.

Finally, on to Independent Practice.  Students can use their fancy schmancy T-Charts to guide them as they fill out their own Venn Diagram on their own.  Here's an example!

Tomorrow, we will be reflecting about our Robert Munsch Author Study.  I have a little worksheet for my students to complete, with lots of open ended questions.  AND, here's my favorite part...A STUDENT IDEA!  IF we have time, we're going to write mini-biographies about Robert Munsch!  (*gasp*) How exciting that they have so much interest and motivation to actually want to CREATE their own assignments and add EXTRA work!  Woo-Hoo!  My students never cease to amaze me!

So that's it for today, I'm off to spend a little time putting together my whole Robert Munsch Pack for TpT.  If I happen to get it all together by this weekend, I'll be sure to give you guys a free preview (and most likely giveaway one or two free packs!) so keep checking in!!! (AND if you have any suggestions or thoughts to add, by all means, let me know!  If you add a useful, new suggestion to add to my pack, I will send you a free copy of the WHOLE pack once I have it finished!!!)

Happy Thursday!  The weekend's almost here!!!

Studying Robert Munsch!

Hi Friends!  It's hard to believe this is already Wednesday!  I feel like this week has flown by.  I'm sure you all have been just as busy as I have.  After all, it is getting to be that time of year....at our Staff Meeting today, we discussed end of year textbook counts, our end of year "Teacher Self Report", and our end of year "Summatives" with our administrators. CRAZY.  This year has gone by like "that!" (Can you hear me snap?!) :)   Our lounge has a "countdown" banner-ish thing (like that technical term, there?) and there are 44 days left...FORTY FOUR!  NUTS-O! 

And it's going to go even quicker when I think that 20 of those days are going to be spent doing "Author Study" units!  We just began this week, but it is a 4-5 week long block in our curriculum, so by the time it's over, there will be just a little over 20 days left in school...(ok on to a new topic because I'm about to start panicing here...)

So let me tell you a little bit about our Author Study this week so far!  We began with Robert Munsch.  He's a great children's author, and it's an easy transition from Author's Purpose to Robert Munsch, because he clearly writes (most times) to entertain!  And did I mention that pretty much ALL kids love his writing?! 

www.robertmunsch.com

Monday, we began our unit by learning more about Robert Munsch.  After a short introduction, we went down to our library, partnered up, and completed our "Robert Munsch Online Author Study" sheet.  My students always have so much fun with this!  They love reading about ACTUAL authors, and it always cracks me up when they ask (because they ALWAYS ask) "So is Robert Munsch STILL alive?"  Yes, he was born in 1945, which probably does sound ancient to 2nd graders...

Here are a few pics of my sweet kiddos sharing computers.  After they researched all the information to fill in the sheet, they can actually listen to some Robert Munsch stories and poems from his site.  They have so much fun! 

Yesterday and today we read 2 different Robert Munsch stories, created a Robert Munsch folder, and completed some "Story Elements" sheets about his books (characters, setting, problem, solution, favorite part, etc.).  Our class has created a few anchor charts about Robert Munsch, which have lead us to discuss "who" Robert Munsch is.  This may sound silly, but sometimes it's hard for my students to realize that authors are REAL people!  Seeing his website, reading about him, and reading his "blurb"s on the backs of his books really help with that, though!  This also helps to see where he gets his ideas for writing from, as well as his purpose for writing.

I'll post some more pictures tomorrow.  I lost track of time this afternoon, and forgot to snap some quick photos of our anchor charts and Robert Munsch "folders".  They're cute, though! 

OH!  And lastly, leave me a comment if you want a FREE copy of this Robert Munsch Online Author Study.  For the time being, I will be more than happy to share!  I am (hopefully soon) going to compile all of this unit into one, big, cute file to post on TpT.  But, like I said, for now, it's yours for FREE if you just let me know where to send it! :)

Thanks for all the interest!  You can now visit my completed pack on TpT or TN! :)