Literacy week was absolutely wonderful! I am so grateful for all of our guest speakers who took time to come in and tell about their experiences! We had 3 authors, 2 illustrators, a librarian from the Washington library and a few parents who came in and read to the children, and even an armadillo who made a guest appearance and taught us to line dance! The children were completely engaged as each person came in and shared their literary experiences. It was a great week and enjoyed by all!
Monday-author of the book, 33 Habits of a Really Good Man (found in Seagull Books or through her personally at www.polarstarstudies.com) Yvonne Swinson came in and told of writing a book about her father! She told stories about how her father had touched her life, made her laugh, and inspired her to be a better person. She decided that she should share her father's unique perspective and favorite life's mantras through compiling a book with stories of her experiences with him and his favorite quotes. We were interested to find out the process of getting a book published, that's she's working on a few other books, and that after an author gets a book published, he/she is responsible for the marketing and sales of that book, not the publishing company! She read from her book and shared some letters from people who had sent her letters letting her know that her book had changed their lives, or inspired them to be a better father. She showed a letter to the children that President Monson wrote to her applauding her work! She also handed out 5 free copies to children who answered certain questions correctly.
We also greatly enjoyed having Mark Swan-Disney cartoonist and illustrator come in and share his experiences working on great animated films like, Space Jam, Land Before Time 1-4, An American Tale, All Dogs Go To Heaven, and most recently Curious George, to name a few. He's also illustrated several factual animal books, a coloring book for Zions. He taught the children the basic principles of drawing using basic shapes. The children LOVED learning from him and finding out that he trained a long time, going to school at BYU to be prepared to have this career.
Tuesday- we welcomed Daylene Ure, author of Today I Want To Be A Hedgehog and Renee Kimball, who illustrated this adorable children's book. They each told about their individual part in the publishing of this book. We learned about a few publishing rules, like all books are published in multiples of 4! It took many years, and a few mistakes but the end product was well worth the effort! They left a signed copy for our school, and they are offering a Liberty Youth Academy discount! If you go to Barnes And Noble, or Amazon.com you will find their book for $15.00, however, if you order through them directly, and tell them you are from Liberty Youth Academy they will sell it to you for only $8.00! Just email Daylene at daylened@msn.com if you're interested in getting your own copy.
As part of literacy week we worked on the elements of a story and were so inspired by the wonderful authors we'd heard from that we decided to work on writing some of our own short stories which we shared with our classmates. We also took turns reading our favorite children's books to each other and wow, the book worm grew and grew! Earning a pizza party for Thursday was NO PROBLEM AT ALL!
Thursday- Brother Wolverton, known to some of you as David Farland and author of the Ravenspell Books Series, Runelords Fantasy Series, (found in Deseret Books), and author of at least 12 other New York Times Best Sellers, and winner of numerous literary awards, came and talked to the children and signed copies of the children's books. He told us about how he became a famous author, his experiences with working with George Lucas on some Star Wars books, and video games. He also did a fun activity with the children where he led them through the writing of a story, and what the important elements are. He told me later that he was really impressed with the fact that they knew what was needed, and was impressed with their imaginations! He also gave the school the Ravenspell series, and some posters for the school (which won an award for the animation). It was soooo interesting! Our favorite part was when her read a section out of his Mice and Magic. He agreed to come next year, and I'm thinking we need to invite parents to that for sure!
We also had librarian Laurie from the Washington City library come in and read some fun Halloween limericks and Shel Silverstein poems (which they acted out) to the children. We then did a fun Halloween craft with her.
The children really enjoyed seeing each others costumes and guessing who they each were!
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