Archive for the ‘school visits’ Category

This is my 500th blog post, a milestone I could hardly have imagined back in August 2007 when I launched this blog. Given my twin passions for teaching and photography, it is fitting that today’s post should showcase photographs by fourth graders I’ve been teaching. These images were all taken at the Mississippi Museum of Art in the Art Garden, using Kodak Easy Share cameras. If you want to see a photo displayed larger, just click on it.

If you want to read more about this project, check out this blog post by Elizabeth Williams, curator of education at the museum. Her post features photographs of students.

I mentioned last week that I’m working with the Mississippi Museum of Art and Davis Magnet School to develop a lesson plan that will get students engaged in science, writing, photography, and art. I’ve been working with Elizabeth Williams, curator of education at the museum; Jalisha Cross and Jordan Gunther, the two fourth grader teachers at Davis; and Beth West, the IB Coordinator at Davis.Photographs of planning meetings are never very exciting, but we did good work that day. We made books, practiced nature journaling, set up dates for further contact sessions with students. These include times when I will guide the students in photographing the museum’s garden and when Ginger Williams Cook, the museum’s master teaching artist, will guide two sessions on creating watercolors from sketches in their nature journals.

During the final week before the break, I visited both fourth grade classes to introduce the lesson and to talk about my book, Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator.

The Fibonacci Folding Book Project app is now available in Google’s Android Market. The app in Apple’s App Store has been downloaded by people in a handful of countries. It is very exciting to have our content available for tablets. I’d love to hear from app users about the experience.

Richard has put buttons on the homepage of my website that link directly to the appropriate page in the two App outlets. Click here to see.

Our iPad app version of the Fibonacci Folding Book tutorial is now available on iTunes. The best way to find it is to search for “Fibonacci Folding Book”. This is Richard’s first app and I think he did a tremendous job. If you have an iPad, please download it and tell us what you think. The app is free.

Created for teachers of all kinds, including homeschoolers, the app provides step-by-step instructions on creating Fibonacci Folding Books with your students.This multidisciplinary unit includes photography, bookmaking, writing poetry, number patterns, illustration, and measurement.

My friend, Julie Owen, and I have taught this unit with third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. We also taught a professional development workshop for teachers this summer. Read more about the project at St. Therese Catholic School here and the Whole Schools Summer Institute here.

I will be visiting a creative writing class this week to talk about my work. At least one of the questions I expect to get is how can a young person get their work published? I know very little about the market for such work. I did a little research and came up with a few places on the web that seem to be rich with resources, including master classes by young writers for young writers, contests, and online and print magazines.

Please pass these along any young writers or visual artists in your life who are interested in getting their work published.

The National Writing Project, especially this page.

Write It on Scholastic’s website.

The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers offers an annual contest with a rich, distinguished history.

I was awarded a fellowship in the literary arts by the Mississippi Arts Commission. With my fellowship, an award of $3,900, I am charged with creating new work. Earlier this year, I described the process the Commission uses to evaluate fellowship applications. You can read about it here. I very much appreciate the help of Diane Williams, the MAC program director with oversight of the literary arts programs. I also appreciate the panelists.

The Work-in-Progress that I submitted for evaluation is tentatively titled “Not White.” It is a coming-of-age memoir.

In addition to the fellowship, I applied to be included in the MAC’s rosters of Artists and Teaching Artists. This will be my second three-year stint on the roster of Artists (for the literary arts) and the first stint with the Teaching Artists. In addition to Diane, who helped with the roster process, I also thank Kim Whitt, the program director with oversight of the teaching artist roster.

The final piece of good news is that all my struggling earlier this year with my Picture Book Work-in-Progress is really bearing fruit. I’m nearly ready to send it out into the world — again. Wish me luck!

Here’s a leaf I saw on the tip of an Island north of Seattle. Even with expanses of water, I am drawn to veins in a leaf.

 

My semiannual royalty statement came this week and it included an entry I didn’t understand. When I checked on it, I found out that Boyds Mills Press has contracted with a company in China that wishes to publish Wolfsnail in the Chinese market. In this pay period, I received a modest advance against (hoped for) future royalties. This will be interesting. I hope I will see a Chinese copy someday.

Speaking of the royalty statement, I am pleased with the fact that both books continue to sell. After nearly a year on the market, Growing Patterns remains well behind Wolfsnail in lifetime sales, but, if Amazon’s numbers from book scan (in Author Central data – NOT sales rank) are to be believed, Growing Patterns is outselling Wolfsnail this Spring.

More Thank You Notes

When I was California earlier this year, I visited Liz Woodward’s fourth grade class at the International Community School. You can read about the visit here. These are some of the thank you notes I got from the students.

With pencil writing against the blue background, this may be hard for you to read so here it is transcribed:

“Thank you for teaching us about the wolfsnails. Thank you for expeachly teaching us the Fibonacci numbers. They come from nature. Thank you for giving me advice for writing a book. Althoo I’m not the greatest neat writer I want this thank you letter to touch your heart.”

It did, Hector.
 

During my recent trip to San Francisco, I visited St. Matthews Episcopal Day School. You can read about the visit here. I received a large envelope of thank you notes. Here are a few:

One of the best things about school visits is the mail that I get from students after I get home. I have a few letters I’d like to share here. The first batch are from Washington School in Greenville, Miss. Read my post about the visit here.

 

Today I drove down to Oakland to visit fourth grade students at the International Community School and Think College Now. Thank you, Ms. Woodard and Ms. Hatscheck. Your students asked great questions and gave me tons of things to think about. Read about my visit with students at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Day School here.