Four Young Authors Shine at Book Fair!

Today was our final class for the SAGE program at Shenendahowa Schools (Clifton Park, NY). The four young authors shared their final book projects with each other and their families.

Ben wrote about hurricanes. He also prepared a PowerPoint presentation.

Rohan focused on volcanoes. One of his illustrations used paper-engineering of a volcanoe that popped off the page!

Janine grew alongside a cacao tree. Her choice of colors matched her colorful personality!

And, Drew wrote about a rhino and its present endangered status. (This is just his working or "dummy" book. He is creating his final book now.)

Thank you to the four young authors and their parents for making this a successful program.

Writers, remember to send me a signed copy of your first book when it's hot off the press!

Bravo! Bravo!

(I'm going to miss you!)

Follow the Adventures of Barbara

My daughter, Elise, is blogging about our guiding eye puppy raising experience.

Follow the paws ...

Meet Barbara!

We have a new resident in our house. Barbara, a guiding eye puppy in training, arrived last night. She is eight weeks old, about ten pounds, a yellow lab, and full of energy. My daughter, Elise, will be her primary raiser. (As usual, Mom is the taxi driver, pet food buyer, and the provider of patience.)

Check back often and watch her grow!

It Looked Good Enough to Eat ...

... so we did!

For today's Saturday's Scholars program at Shenendahowa, we worked on illustration techniques using a still life of fruit.

We divided a large sheet of paper into four quadrants. In one quadrant, we illustrated using only pencil. In another, we used only colored pencils. In the third, we used markers. And in the fourth, we used cut-paper collage.

We also learned how to control what we see by making a window with our hands to limit the view, from the entire plate of fruit to just the seeds on the watermelon!

When we finished our artwork, we do what all artists do best. We ate it! Yums!

In Praise of Chocolate

The Patriot-News Company (Harrisburg, PA) ran a short article about my visit to Linglestown Elementary School. It's always fun to hear what the young students gain from my time with them! It's even more fun to discover what I gain from them! Thanks again, Linglestown Elementary, Phillips Elementary, and Middle Paxton School. Happy Reading. Happy Chocolate!