Reading Illustration/GA Children's Lit Conference

Art project done in conjunction with the book Flotsam by David Wiesner.

Shane Rayburn and Megan Reeves collaborated on a project to help first graders relate to reading through the illustrations in a terrific picture book. Flotsam is a wordless picture book that can't possibly be daunting to a struggling reader. I've used Flotsam in a storytime before (and I could have sworn I blogged about that, but I can't find it now), showing the pictures and talking about the story. Wiesner himself talked about the making of this Caldecott Award winner at the conference last year.

These children made art. They had disposable cameras to take home to take pictures of people and things important to them. Then each one had a Polaroid picture taken, holding the previous photo (if there was one), just like in the story. They painted a picture of themselves (enjoined to "use the whole page" and to leave the hands and arms where they could hold the pictures. One of the pictures they took at home was added to the painting as well as the picture of the child holding one of the Polaroid photos.

Okay, now I want to do something like this during the summer reading program ...