Original inquiry: What types of things would you include in an author study for 2nd
graders? Looking for some "captivating" ideas! Thanks in advance!!
Here are the responses I received...thanks for your responses:
Earlier
this year, I did a Caldecott Award study using Denise Fleming, Mo
Willems and Tomie DePaola, I found some video interviews on the net and show
short clips to the kids. They liked seeing the people and knowing about the
medals. Now they look for those when borrowing books. The video clips shared
true stories about how the person decided to be an artist/author / Tomie at
age 4-5 knew he wanted to be an artist. I am trying to think of the name of
the site. I may have to resend a message to you.
IN the past we did Eric Carle w/help from the art teacher. We have the video
Eric Carle Picture Writer. I don't use the entire video but the parts that
show how he makes his paper first a nd
then the pictures are great.
The art teacher helped kids make paper, the classroom teacher was studying
bugs/insects. In the lmc we looked at non fiction on bugs.
Kids made one picture w/ the papers they made and wrote a fact re: the
insect in the picture. The art teacher had shiney buttons etc which they
could glue into the pictures. Later you could scan the pictures into the
voicethread and have kids read the info into the voicethread. Put them up
for all to see on the home page or class pages online..
Try Reading Rockets for the video interviews:
http://www.readingrockets.org/
Have fun
~Jean Koch Good question...and one that I often think of asking. When I do an
author
study with a younger class I start out with a picture of the author and a
quickie bio...just something they might find interesting. Like when I do
Ezra Jack Keats I talk about the time he drew on the kitchen table and what
did his mother say. Then I pull all of the books that we have by that
author. I read some and do an extension or two over a few library times. I
send the rest of the books to classes for teachers and students to read. It
really helps if the teacher cooperates here. On the white board the students
and I keep a list of what they have read so far. They tell me what they have
read throughout the past week and I write it down. (They love to compare to
what the other class has read!) Then we end with a craft or a game. We make
pictures like Denise Fleming; play a pp guessing game where one screen has a
short synopsis of the book...they guess the title of the book...then we go
to the next screen to see the picture of the book described to see if they
were right. We might play bingo with book titles. I would love to think of
more tie-it-up activities.
~Connie Welch Sometimes I do a powerpoint about the author's life, with lots of
pictures of him/her at different ages, where they went to school, children, how
they died, etc. They like to know all of that information - makes them seem like a
real person.
Other times I give out the same information, but start with a nice 8 x 10 sized
portrait of the artist. I don't identify the person; I merely pass it around and
have the students comment and make observations about the type of person they think
it is, what they did, what they were like, etc.
Some authors have fun "extras" already packed into their books - Mercer Mayer
hides a frog, spider, mouse or grasshopper on many pages; Marc Brown hides his
children's names in the illustrations.
We might write the author, make up a puppet show for one of the books, or even act
out skits based on the author's works.
At the end we might have a "party" with a video version of the books and a related
food snack. Other times we end with a puzzle contest related to the books we've
read, and presented in word search, crossword, or other formats.
I try to still include some interesting coloring sheets, stickers, pencils, etc. I
also like to come up with "funky" crafts to match the books. For example, for
Tomie De Paola's "Strega Nona" books, I've always wanted to make spaghetti monsters
with yarn and eyeballs.
You could also have a book cover design contest, skype with the author, podcast
someone reading one of the stories. It'd be really cool to have a person from
Sweden read a book by a Swedish author, for example. It's also fun to skype and
work with other schools in faraway areas on the same author.
Tee shirt designs, dress as your favorite character from a specific author day,
etc.
~Louise Leonard
Sue Moore- SLMS
North Branford Public Schools
North Branford, CT
jsmoore982@hotmail.com
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