Author Visits With Our Youngest Learners
On Thursday morning, grades pre-K to 1 met via Zoom with author and illustrator Sam Wedelich to talk about her new book Chicken Little and the Big Bad Wolf. In the lead-up to the event, teachers read her books to the students and made a variety of curricular connections. Ms. Oznick used Sam Wedelich’s Chicken Little books to talk to students about book features like text bubbles that show which character is speaking and examined how the author chose to use different color text to indicate who is speaking in the story.
In her presentation, Wedelich shared pictures of her artist studio with us and explained how a book gets made. She showed examples from her work that illustrated the importance of collaborating with a team when you make a book. She performed a live drawing demonstration so we could see how Chicken Little is made of different shapes and offered tips like looking at your face in the mirror while you are expressing a certain emotion so you can draw your character’s face that way.
Students were so inspired by the author’s presentation that many created their own chickens. She even offered insight into how picture books work by explaining how she plans what pictures and text to include before every page turn to keep the reader wanting more. One kindergartner in Ms. Hartvigsen’s class asked the author whether she had won any awards. When she said she hadn’t, Ms. Hartvigsen’s class took it upon themselves to design some awards for her books because they thought she had earned them!
Both Chicken Little and the Big Bad Wolf, and her first book Chicken Little: The Real and Totally True Tale will be available in the Erskine Library collection for students to borrow. Also arriving this week is Petite Poulette, the French edition of her first book! Madame Pellenq is eager for it to arrive so she might use it with her students.
If you’d like to buy a signed book for your child, please order a copy from Belmont Books here.
– Amy Sprung, school librarian
PE Update: Sunny Days Fuel Students’ Energy
According to science, increased thermal leads to kinetic energy. And so it was in PE, with the sunshine giving our students even more energy than normal, and allowing them to crush a wide range of obstacle courses and implements this week. They hustled and cooperated, played and competed, and did it with a smile, giving us a preview of all the excitement and energy we can expect this spring. Click here to check out this week’s PE highlights video!
– The Physical Education Team
