Tag Archives: author visits

Celebration: Calef Brown Land

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This week I am thrilled to celebrate a very special visit from author/artist/poet/word-wizard/snail-inventor, the amazing Calef Brown! To say that we adore Calef Brown’s art and poems is an extreme understatement. We are ultimate fans! So much so that we have been working on creating what we have come to call Calef Brown Land: a world on our outside bulletin board that features creatures, flying machines, flora and fauna inspired by Calef’s work.

Calef’s book Dragon, Robot, Gatorbunny was the inspiration for many of these pieces Dragon, Robot, Gator Bunny Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That We started drawing . . . Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That And then we painted Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Creatures and such were cut out and collected. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That And then the building of Calef Brown Land began. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That It was admired 🙂 Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Because it is AMAZING! Full of whimsy, vibrant colours and all kinds of joyous charm. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That And then, today . . . Calef Brown, himself, was coming to visit! Books were ready (check out the top row) Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That The schedule was set. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Welcome signs were made. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That And then, we heard the shouts, “Calef Brown is here! He’s here!”

Staying in the room and calm went quickly out the window. Because today was the day! We got to visit with Calef Brown!

Sharing the mural was pretty special. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That But having Calef Brown share with us . . . Well, now, that was just full of wow! We talked about syllables and favourite words. Rhymes and near rhymes. List making. Word savouring. Rice paper. Tones. Inspiration. Silly. Colours. End papers and treasures under the book jackets. We got to ask lots of questions and found out many things like which came first – the poem? the word? the illustration? (Never the chicken or the egg in case you were wondering)

We watched Calef read poems (perfectly) upside down. And . . . recite multiple poems from memory. Most of his poems are stored in his head and he shared them with us, when the time was right, on multiple occasions. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That When the students had their recess break, Calef made each one a special note. (Yes, he really did this! I witnessed it!)

He also gifted a signed copy of his newest book Hypnotize a Tiger to our school. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That Calef got a little peek at my students doing what they do best: losing themselves in books! His books, of course, flew into hands and were shared together or devoured individually. Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That In the afternoon, students got a peek at their individual notes. Lots of smiles all around 🙂 Celebration: Calef Brown Land There's a Book for That This week I celebrate Calef Brown’s generosity, creativity and time. His visit was very special for us, confirming our knowledge that book makers – readers, writers, artists extraordinaire are magical. They make the world extra everything! Thank you Calef Brown! This was a morning for the very important memory files. Filed under . . .

wordy wanderings

art meanderings

kindly offerings

Same  number of syllables inspiration  🙂

Thank you to Ruth Ayres and the #celebratelu community! Being part of a community that regularly shares gratitude and celebrations truly transforms my weeks. celebrate-link-up

Deborah Hodge visits Division 5!

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On November 15th, 2011, local author Deborah Hodge visited Division 5 to share her books, her process and her knowledge with us.

Author Deborah Hodge

Deborah Hodge has a fantastic blog to check out and even wrote about her visit with us at Seymour! Students were very excited when I let them know that we had an author coming to visit. When Deborah came to the door just before the recess bell, she was greeted by a huge hug from Sergio who looked up at her and said: “Hi Deborah. I really like to read books.” During recess, Deborah set up all of her books around the classroom and when students returned, Shae-Lynn exclaimed, “Did you really write all of those books?” It was a very impressive display!

Deborah explained that when she had been a teacher, many of her students wanted to read non-fiction books but the text and language was just not at their level. She was motivated to create non-fiction titles that were much more accessible – full of fabulous non-fiction features like labelled diagrams, a glossary, fact boxes and interesting facts! Each book contains something life sized in a drawing at the back of each book.

Deborah’s first book was Bears, a popular title in our classroom.

Deborah began sharing the steps in making a non-fiction book like doing the research, writing the text, revising and editing, working with an illustrator, etc. She shared examples of each step as she described it. At one point about mid-way through the series of steps, one student let out a big sigh. “Wow! There really are a lot of steps in making a non-fiction book!

Deborah also shared some cool facts she learned as she researched her various books. A few favourites of ours:

  • An anaconda is as long as a bus and as heavy as two big men
  • When a polar bear cub is born, it is as small as the palm of your hand
  • A mother deer leaves the fawn alone when it is first born so that her scent won’t attract predators.

Deborah also brought in animal fur and animal skulls to show us. Very interesting and fun to interact with!

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Deborah left us with more than a great learning experience – about how non-fiction books are made, about animals, and about furs and skulls. She left us with some lovely gifts.

First she signed our classroom copy of  Lily and the Mixed up Letters. This wonderful book about a little girl who struggles learning to read is of course written by Deborah and illustrated by France Brassard. It is a favourite of both Ms. Gelson and Ms. Hibbert.

Then Deborah gifted our classroom with two of her latest and greatest books! We plan to delve into these books in the Spring when we can learn more about growing food in different places.

Then, last but not least, Deborah gave each student a copy of one of her non-fiction titles.

I am a big believer of children owning their own books and having their own book collections – the power of “books in hand and in home.” Deborah signed each book for each child and in the last week I have heard students making comments like, “Did you read about . . . . in our book?” Thank you Deborah for such an amazing morning and such generosity!