Children's Illustrators @ Arkansas Reading Conference 2012

 Mark Your Calendars!!

Be looking for the list of authors and children's book ILLUSTRATORS...Coming Soon!!

 November 15-16, 2012
Statehouse Convention Center & Peabody Hotel, Little Rock, Arkansas
Keynote Speakers Steve Layne Timothy Shanahan Linda Hoyt   More Details and Proposal submissions at http://www.arareading.org/ Contact me at huskeyj72501@yahoo.com for more information.     Steven L. Layne serves as full time Professor of Literacy Education at Judson University in Elgin, IL. His experience working at multiple grade levels in the public schools provides a unique camaraderie with teachers and librarians. His award-winning books for children and young adults add another element to his dynamic presentations. http://www.stevelayne.com  

—Danny Brassell is a professor in the Teacher Education Department at California State University-Dominguez Hills and founder of http://www.lazyreaders.com/. He is the author of over 50 journal and newspaper articles and nine books, including 75+ Reading Strategies: Boost Achievement and Build a Life-Long Love of Reading, Dare to Differentiate: Vocabulary Strategies for All Students, and Bringing Joy Back Into the Classroom.

   

—Timothy Shanahan is a professor of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he serves as director of the UIC Center for Literacy.  A former IRA president, he has authored, co-authored, or edited more than 150 publications including Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners and Teachers Thinking, Teachers Knowing. His research focuses on the relationship of reading and writing, school improvement, the assessment of reading ability, and family literacy.

 

—Linda Hoyt has worked as a reading specialist, a staff developer, a curriculum specialist, and a Title I Coordinator. Her special love is creating environments where children engage as active participants in the learning process.  She is the author of numerous books including: Revisit,Reflect, Retell: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension; Snapshots: Literacy Minilessons UpClose; Exploring Informational Texts: From Theory to Practice; Make It Real: Strategies for Success with Informational Texts; and Spotlight on Comprehension:Building a Literacy of Thoughtfulness.

 

—Kwame Alexander has written 14 books, owned several publishing companies, written for the stage and television (TLC's "Hip Hop Harry"), recorded a CD, performed around the world, produced jazz and book festivals, hosted a weekly radio show, worked for the U.S. Government, and taught in a high school. He resides in the Washington, DC area, where he is the Founding Director of Book-in-a-Day (BID), a program that teaches and empowers teenagers to write and publish their own books.http://bookinaday.org/index.php?page=stories

 

Page McBrier is an award-winning author, writing teacher, drama specialist, and arts consultant from Connecticut. She has written over 40 books including Beatrice’s Goat, winner of a 2001 Christopher Award. Some of her other books include Confessions of a Reluctant Elf and the Oliver and Companyseries                                                                                                                                 http://pagemcbrier.com/ 

Jasper Johns & LMNO Peas

These are still a work in progress...but I am already loving them so I wanted to post what I had so far!

We began our project with the book LMNO Peas by Keith Baker. 

It is a fun alphabet book about these tiny green peas that show action.  It is a great book for talking about action verbs and having students come up with verbs that would go with each alphabet letter.  I had mine try and predict what action the peas would be doing as I turned each page.  By the end of the book they were getting much better with developing their action verbs!

One of my friends that teaches Kindergarten had given me these great alphabet stamps that she had purchased from Lakeshore.  They are jumbo and perfect for little hands.  So, naturally, printmaking came to mind and who better to go along with the alphabet book than the king of printmaking....JASPER JOHNS!

So we did an artist study on Johns and I displayed several copies of various art pieces in the room.  Then my 2nd and 3rd graders completed an art writing piece about Johns where they reflected on interesting or intriguing aspects of his work and stated some facts that they had learned about Johns.   They glued these writings to the back of their finished art work (I decided if they actually keep their artwork then they will always have the background information on Jasper johns.

We did print making with the alphabet stamps in cool colors then we painted around the letters with warm colors.  I love them!  My K-1^st graders completed a slip with the photo of the cover of the book printed on it and the statement “___ is for ___”.  I had them put their first initial and their first name in the blanks.  This week they are finishing by using green paper and cutting out small peas and giving them faces to glue on their piece.

Here is a short power point on JJ:  http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/huskeyj72501-1347957-jasper-johns/

Lady Liberty

This is a great story with wonderful illustrations about the Statue of Liberty.  I read this with my 4th-6th graders then they used sharpies to draw lady liberty and we painted them with a very watered down water color and cut them out to glue onto their NYC reflection piece.  Some of the students did a night sky with glitter fireworks which looked very neat.

Melting Snowmen

       

 This was our attempt at melted snowmen.  We read the book Stranger in the Woods which has amazing photograph illustrations.  We talked about what would happen eventually to the children's snowman in the book and what would happen to the pieces used to create the snowman like the hat, scarf, carrot, etc.  We were also working on writing captions and discussed what the snowman might be thinking or saying.  Their work is just hilarious with thier captions!  "I'm hot in more than one way" is my favorite! 

Some of them were really creative.  We discussed how this shouldn't be the traditional snowman with three snowballs that they were used to illustrating.  I gave them white paint only with q'tips to paint thier snow and snowman.  They used construction paper scraps to add the details.

Snowman Snowballs with Paper Mache

Paper Mache Snowmen turned out great!  We read Snowmen at Night and began the creating.  I did this with my 2nd graders so I tried to keep it as simple as possible. We started making snowballs out of newspaper then wrapped them in masking tape to keep their shape.  Then we used a flour and watered down glue mix to paper mache the snowballs.  I spray painted the balls white because we were running out of time and I didn't think they would finish them in time if we had to wait another week for them to dry.  They cut out the features from construction paper and we glued on poms to make the ear muffs.  They all had such personality.  We used a straight pin and ribbon to poke through the back to make the hanger so they could be hung on the tree. 

Folk Art Reindeer



 Well the idea was to create these bright cheery reindeer then design with lines and patterns a cool folk art style background to glue the deer on.  Unfortunately we ran out of time before Christmas break and the reindeer was all we finished.  They begged me to let them take them home and I figured after the holidays I will be ready to move on.  So we ended with these and will try another piece in 2012.

My book I used was Olive the other Reindeer by Seibold.

Reindeers, Trees and Cranes...OH MY!

More Christmas stuff from my students getting ready for the holidays.  This year we talked about the origin and meaning behind some of the traditions in the United States. 

Kindergarten and 1st grade did these burlap reindeer ornaments.  They glued a clothes pin on the back so they could hang on the tree or be used for other purposes.  They turned out great.  The hardest part for them was cutting out the burlap.  With persistence they did complete the circle.

5th and 6th grade, along with our Chinese teacher, read the book The Tree of Cranes by Allen Say  then made these great origami cranes to place on the tree.

4th grade is working on sewing for the first time (a project that seems to be taking forever).  They each cut out their own triangles.  They had to make 2 that were identical.  We have some that are very tiny and some that are about the size of my hand. 

 

Now they are sewing on beads for ornaments.  Next week we will stitch the two together, stuff and sew on a rectangle for the trunk.  Last they will add a ribbon to the top so their softie tree can hang.

My student created these straw blown Christmas trees that we used with our MyCards project to make cards for parents to order for Christmas.  If you are not familiar with MyCards it is a great easy way to make some extra $ for your art room, go to http://www.mountaincolor.com/.