Write About It!/Ga Children's Lit Conference

Miriam ("Mimi") Rutland is a published author of a series of books about Miss Pistachio. Her session on teaching writing realistic fiction to kids using their own experiences interested me because of the Be Creative theme of this summer's reading program. I was already thinking about a poetry workshop. Maybe I could do this also or instead - maybe I should just go lie down.

Rutland uses a storyboard approach in her 3rd-5th grade writing clubs. She has them think of three people that are important to them, then three events: vacation, birthday, lost tooth. They have to pick one of the people (who doesn't have to be connected with the event) and describe the person: what they look like, what sort of personality. Then you put the person together with one of the events ... and embellish. Add little bits, like spices.

She says that the hardest thing to do is to start. Sometimes they need to have realistic explained to them (no flying cars or talking animals). Sometimes they need to brainstorm a special event: going to the beach, visiting a friend's house, making a new friend.

And she made us go through the process. She read some of the paragraphs we wrote "anonymously." She was careful to praise what she thought was good or interesting about the paragraphs, which of course reminded me of Mrs. Smith in Kindergarten and how she squashed a classmate's clay cat and told her she had done it all wrong and to "Start Over!" I had been looking at her method of dividing the clay into pieces and making the cat (we all had to make a cat that day - no creativity in that class!) out of them the same way you'd assemble a snowman: ball with smaller ball on top, tiny balls pinched into ears, another piece rolled into a long tail, etc. I looked at my cat, all pinched here and there and messy looking and then at her neatly assembled one and had been at the point redoing mine when Mrs. Smith waddled over in her grey wool suit, ruffled blouse, and black orthopedic shoes and squashed the snowcat flat. It's a lesson for all of us who work with kids. [Not to put too fine a point on it, the lesson is: Don't Do That!]

Rutland's presentation was simple and organized and fit exactly in the time allotted. So maybe there should be short sessions and longer sessions.

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 ...

Storytime Goodies/GA Children's Lit Conference

One of the concurrent sessions was given by Kaleema Abdurrahman, who simply did not have enough time to share all she knew about fun ways to share books with children. This session was packed. They had to bring in more chairs.

Abdurrahman makes her own feltboards (to change the shape, size, color, make them more portable) and uses sandpaper for the backing, which is an interesting alternative to, say, velcro.
She works with stick puppets in something she calls Box Theatre, a medium sized box from which the top, back, and a bit from the sides has been removed. Inside, at the top of the front she has put the foam double-sided tape to hold the stick puppets still, when necessary. She replaces the protective paper on the exposed side to keep it fresh. OMG, what one cannot learn from this woman!

I had never heard of a magnetboard. Maybe that's what that white thing is on the back of our store-bought (I feel so wasteful now!) flannelboards. Does Abdurrahman buy some expensive magnetboard? No way! She brings in a cookie sheet and uses the back. She showed us the front side to prove it was actually used for baking cookies as well. Now you can put sandpaper and magnet tape on your shapes!

Here's an idea, before putting up posters, put some booktape in the corners (where you plan to use other tapes or adhesives) to protect the poster.

She also makes her own story aprons, tree trunks out of Pringle's cans for the squirrel puppet, a toilet paper tube for a candle to do "Jack Be Nimble" - and demonstrated for us jumping over it. You can just picture a whole roomful of kids jumping over the paper and cardboard candle. She hangs scenery around her neck and

She decorated a peanut can to look like a dog and then wrote the titles of stories about dogs on paper "bones" she put inside the can. Children could draw out a bone to determine what story would be told next. She made story cards out of discarded books (we have a couple of these).

And her Humpty-Dumpty egg with a fake "yoke" inside was a hilarious idea. Oh, and I laughed out loud when she did "Ten in the Bed" with the Little One (babydoll) in a homemade bed who was overcrowded with toys and she just tossed a toy out for each verse.

Some of these sessions should be a bit longer.