Author Study

1st graders have spent the last week celebrating themselves as readers. Yes, we can all read!! We've spent this last week of school together doing author studies on some of our favorite writers. We would always begin by watching an interview of the author to learn how they take their ideas and make them into a real published book. Then we would read a variety of books by that author and complete fun activities.  We began with the hilarious Mo Willems.

Don't let the Pigeon drive the bus!

Pigeon inspired stories

Inspired by Knuffle Bunny

Mo Willems always entertains us will his writing and definitely makes us laugh. We learned that every night at dinner time, Mo and his family sit down to doodle at the kitchen table. Mo explained that we should never give up on drawing, so we thought we'd give his doodling a try.

Next, we meet Laura Numeroff, who was told by 9 publishers that her books weren't good before she found someone who believed in her. She taught us to never give up. After reading many of her circlular stories, we created our own circle cookie map to sequence the events from her story If you Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Kevin Henkes really showed us how long the writing process can take. We learned that he begins all his writing on a type writer and then starts his illustrations in pencil before he goes over them in marker and finishes with paints.  While doing our live webcast in the fall we met and learned about Kevin Henkes but now we can actually read his books! 1st graders were inspired by Chrysanthemum to discuss character traits. We learned that Chrysanthemum was brave, loved, polite, sweet and so many other great adjectives.

Have you ever seen what Arthur looked like when Marc Brown first started drawing him? Marc Brown showed us that we never stop revising and editing our work. While reading his Arthur stories we worked on making connections. Marc Brown's stories are inspired by the events from his 3rd grade classroom. Buster was even inspired by his best friend. This allowed us to make many personal connections to his stories.

Making Connections with Marc Brown

To end our wonderful study of authors, this week we will explore H.A Rey who writes the beloved Curious George series.  We will then practice making inferences with David Shannon's stories.  1st graders had a stupendous time learning about all these talented authors. Who knows maybe someday room 116 will be doing an author study on one of these young writers or illustrators.