Rick Riordan Fans!

 I admit I am a big Rick Riordan fan. I finished Mark of Athena  this weekend already and now have to wait a whole year for the next one! I love that some of my kids are big fans of his also though. A group of them have checked out all of his books and love to get them at book fair. I was beyond excited for them when Bookmarks emailed me to ask if we might want 4 free student tickets to give away for a Rick Riordan event at Wake Forest University last Friday night.

Yes, please! 

Some of the winning submissions

I talked to our fifth grade teachers and curriculum coordinator to decide how to give away the tickets. We settled on having the interested students write a letter about why they wanted to win the ticket. I chose 4 students and it was the highlight of my day to tell them they won! They were so excited and I passed out the tickets. One student's dad was kind enough to send me a couple of pictures from the event. I was hoping they would get to meet Mr. Riordan, but he had pre-signed the books. They did get to submit questions and enjoyed his talk though.

Getting ready to get started

Thank you Bookmarks!! What a great event and the students were so excited to win the tickets!

Rick Riordan during the event

With their signed books!

Virtual Author Visit on Your Own Schedule!

Skyping with us last year

Suzanne Slade was kind enough to skype with one of our second grade classes last year and the kids loved it! Now, she has created two YouTube videos that are really great and could function as an author visit on your own time for free! The first one, What Authors Really Do, describes what she does, where she works, how she writes, and more. The second one is a Q&A of the top 10 questions kids always ask her. I enjoyed both videos and she does a great job keeping them engaging and adds some humor too. With over 90 books under her belt, she is certainly an accomplished author! It is interesting for kids too to see a mostly non-fiction author since author studies are usually done with fiction authors. Check it out!

Carol Marsh Skype Session

Fourth graders had the opportunity to skype with Carol Marsh. Ms. Marsh has written many, many books but fourth grade in particular reads The Mystery of the Biltmore House and visits the Biltmore house on a field trip. This was an exciting experience for kids to be able to find out things like what room was Ms. Marsh's favorite room. (Hint - the library!) Here are some pictures from the day.

Thank you Deborah Diesen!

It started with a blog post about our Literacy Day a couple of weeks ago. One of our Kindergarten classrooms did their door decoration about The Pout Pout Fish and the Big Big Dark. Well, imagine our glee when the author herself left a comment on our blog post! I looked up Deborah Diesen's blog and found her email, and emailed her to thank her. I also asked her if she would be willing to skype with the class and she said Yes!!

On Monday I got a wonderful envelope with a picture of Mr. Fish on the return address label.

I opened it and was so excited to find bookmarks for the students each signed by Mrs. Diesen herself!

 Today was the big day! At 9:00 we Skype called Mrs. Diesen and got to talk to her! She answered lots of questions. Many were typical Kindergarten questions such as what are your kids names and how old are you, but some asked book questions like how did you come up with Mr. Fish and are you working on a fourth book. She was very good with the kids and answered everything they asked her with a smile. The kids learned that often authors and illustrators don't work together to make the books, she has a fourth book coming out soon, and she came up with Pout Pout Fish when she was making faces trying to make her son laugh one day!

 Then, she read us Pout Pout Fish and the Big Big Dark!

 She even taught us hand motions to go with the refrain so we could do it together.

 Strong like a shark!

 We passed out the bookmarks and the kids were so excited! One even put both hands on her face and made a face almost like the Home Alone face she was so happy!

THANK YOU MRS. DIESEN! You made our day and helped this group get even MORE excited about reading!! We appreciate the bookmarks and your time. I think these kids will always remember this experience. I can't say enough about how much we appreciate it and how much we enjoyed it.

Literacy Day 2012

What a day this is! We have had live author visits, Skype author visits, a news reporter and other mystery readers, and so many people dressed as their favorite book characters. I am glad I am not the one judging the door decorations this year - they are all wonderful! Here are some pictures from our day!


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Author Visit from Jane Edwards and Renee Pappas

Skyping with Suzanne Slade

Wait, who is that sleeping in the office? Sleepy?

Katie Nordeen from Fox 8

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...

Judy Moody and Grace

There was an old lady who swallowed some leaves...

Piggie and Elephant

Why is the Evil Queen using our office computer?

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (Sneezy was literally out sick!)

Asleep on the job again!! We need to talk to that Sleepy!

Library Door - The Giving Tree (the theme this year is going green so this is 100% reused materials!)

Very Hungry Caterpillar

There was an old lady who swallowed some clover

Dinosaurs Love Underpants

Pout Pout Fish

Amazing Grace

Bridge to Terabithia

Watsons Go to Birmingham

LOVE that they posted the permission to use the Pigeon character from Mo Willems!

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Ramona the Pest

Oh the Places You Will Go

The Foot Book

Green Eggs and Ham

The Giving Tree

Hello Ocean

Where the Wild Things Are

Green Eggs And Ham

Jan Brett

The Lorax

Bad Case of Stripes

4th grade doors from Soft Rain

Al Capone Does My Shirts

Island of the Blue Dolphins

The Landry News

Mr. Lincoln's High Tech War



Sleepy Again???