HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW? A Visit with Mrs. Best’s Kindergarten Class, Haynes School, Los Angeles, CA

School Garden 2025, Haynes Charter Elementary, Los Angeles, CA.

In the spring of 2022, my book PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6, the story of Mrs. Best’s kindergarteners and their school garden, was published by Charlesbridge. 

Last week I visited Mrs. Best’s to see how this year's garden was growing and to share some of my books with the students. The garden looked terrific with the peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and a patch of white alyssum, all growing like gangbusters. Earlier in the week the children had harvested the radishes—always the first to be ripe for picking.

In the classroom, the students are hatching eggs, which were in their ninth day of incubation on the day of my visit. They are scheduled to hatch on May 13. I read my book HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6, which documented the children of Mrs. Best’s class of 2015 as they hatched eggs. After reading the book we talked about feathers and eggs. I measured the children's wingspans--most were peregrine falcons--and showed them my ostrich egg.

The students will also be growing butterflies, the topic of my book BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6. Their caterpillars had just arrived in the mail and the students will watch them grow, form chrysalises, and emerge as painted lady butterflies.

Soon the children will be adding earthworms to their garden. I finished my visit by reading WIGGLE AND WAGGLE and having the children sing the Wiggle and Waggle gardening song with me. It was a fun morning.

It is always a pleasure to visit Mrs. Best’s classroom at Haynes School. I love the way she does so many hands-on science projects with her students and to see their enthusiasm for them. I can’t thank her enough for her cooperation and collaboration with my Room 6 books. 

Caroline and Jennifer Best

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Hope you will have a fun and yummy Turkey Day!
The illustration is from one of my first cut-paper art books Who Has More? Who Has Fewer? On one side of this folding book for tots, children count the eggs of seven kinds of birds. On the reverse side, the chicks have hatched!

Charlotte Huck Children’s Literature Festival, Redlands, California

The Charlotte S. Huck Children's Literature Festival is held every year at Redlands University, in California

A week ago, on March 8 and 9, I participated in the 23d Annual Charlotte S. Huck Children’s Literature Festival at the University of Redlands, in Redlands, California. This was my third time to be a speaker at the festival, an annual event that celebrates children’s books and is a wonderful opportunity for teachers and librarians to get together and have a chance to meet authors and other professionals in the field. Featured speakers this year were Joe Cepeda, Sharon Draper, Bethany Hegadus, Richard Michelson, Doreen Rappaport and Joyce Sidman–an impressive array of authors and illustrators. The Festival is chaired by Dr. Marjorie Arnett and a very hard working planning committee makes sure that everything runs smoothly.

Signing books at the Festival

At one of the Festival breakout sessions I gave a workshop called Butterflies and Chicks: Hands on Science in the Classroom. I worked with two classes at Ramona Alessandro School in San Bernardino, California, who had been reading my books. The classes completed writing and art projects in a unit they called “Feathers and Forests, Wings and Wombats, an author study of nature and animal books by Caroline Arnold."

Samples of art and writing projects by Ramona Alessandro students that were displayed at the Festival

Their teachers, Kristy Forsythe and Arlene Asuelime, had done a fantastic job with the children. The visit to the festival was coordinated by parent volunteer Stephanie McNairy. I thank them all for helping to make my session a special experience for all. Two weeks earlier I had had the pleasure of visiting the children in their classroom where I got to see their penguin projects and we talked about the other books in my black and white animal series. Both classes had a chance to act out the story of A Polar Bear's World. They had also read Hatching Chicks in Room 6. I was impressed by their art projects showing a chicken’s life cycle and the stories they wrote to go with them. At my workshop session I shared my new book Butterflies in Room 6.

One of the special parts of the festival for me was meeting Joyce Sidman, who has a new book called The Girl Who Drew Butterflies, How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science. Her book, meant for older readers than my butterfly book, is the fascinating story of a young woman who was the first to understand the process of metamorphosis. Like me, Joyce Sidman raised her own painted lady butterflies while she was working on her book so she could see the process up close.

Joyce Sidman, Author

I always enjoy going to the Charlotte Huck Festival and find it inspiring on so many levels. This was another great year! Thank you, Marjorie, for inviting me!

Dr. Marjorie Arnett, Chair of the Charlotte Huck Children's Literature Festival

Author Visit with Kindergarteners at Westwood Charter School in Los Angeles

Westwood Charter School, Los Angeles, CA

Yesterday I had a fun visit with the kindergarten students at Westwood Charter School in Los Angeles, California, and shared my book Hatching Chicks in Room 6. It was an appropriate choice because they are also hatching eggs–except that they have duck eggs in their incubator. Several of the eggs already had pips so it won’t be long before the ducklings hatch. (Duck eggs take 28 days to hatch whereas chicken eggs hatch in 21 days.) I had a lively discussion about birds with the students, showed them my feather collection, and measured their wingspans. I found out that they will be celebrating Audubon’s birthday later this month. At the end of my visit I read the first two stories of Wiggle and Waggle and the children helped me sing the song.
Thanks to kindergarten teacher Sherry Kaufman for inviting me to her classroom. I enjoyed my visit.

HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 at the Pioneer Bookshop in Grinnell, Iowa

On my recent trip to Grinnell, Iowa, for a college reunion, I stopped in at the college bookstore, the Pioneer Bookshop, now located in historic downtown Grinnell, to show them my new book, Hatching Chicks in Room 6. I was delighted to discover that they had already ordered it and put it on the shelf. I then went down the street to the town library, in a beautiful large building, new since my last visit to Grinnell, and found out that they had also already ordered it for their collection. (The old library building is now used as an art gallery.) I had a nice chat with the children's librarian who told me that she loves using my books in her story hour. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that a book about eggs and hatching chicks is popular in a community surrounded by farms and which owes its history to a tradition of farming. It seems like the perfect place for my book.

HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 is a Junior Library Guild Selection

I am pleased to learn that HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 is a Junior Library Guild selection for March 1917.
"The JLG editorial team reviews more than 3,000 new titles each year, in manuscript or prepublication stage. We’ve developed a keen sense for finding the best of the best. Over 95 percent of our selections go on to receive awards and/or favorable reviews. And, according to statistics provided by Collection HQ, from 2013 to 2014 JLG Selections circulated 81% more than other books published for children and teens."

Find out more about the Junior Library Guild HERE.

PUBLICATION PARTY AT HAYNES SCHOOL for Hatching Chicks in Room 6

Lollipops to Celebrate the Publication of Hatching Chicks in Room 6

Last Thursday I made a special visit to Haynes CES School to present my new book, Hatching Chicks in Room 6, to the school, and to celebrate its publication with Jennifer Best, her students who are in the book, and their families. The party was after school in her room, but earlier in the day I gave two assemblies in the auditorium to all grades where I presented the book and talked about the process of writing it. Even for students who didn't have Mrs. Best for kindergarten (she is one of three kindergarten teachers in the school) there was school-wide excitement about the book.

Welcome Banner in Auditorium

Mrs. Best hatches chicks every year. During the incubation and hatching process many students in other classes drop by her room to see the eggs and chicks and check their progress. During the assembly I gave a book to Mrs. Meade, the principal, who was very supportive of the project and will feature it at a district meeting in. March. I also donated a book to the school library.

Caroline, Mrs. Best, and students with their new books

The party began with a presentation of an autographed book to each child. I

also gave each child a postcard and a chick lollipop--they could choose a
yellow, pink, or blue chick. To my surprise, the pink and blue chicks were
just as popular as the yellow ones. (I ordered the lollipops on the
internet.)

Chick cupcakes to celebrate

After the presentation and photographs it was time to eat. I
provided cupcakes decorated to look like chicks. (I bought the candy eyes
and beaks at a local cake decorating shop.) We also had some healthier
food--fruit, cheese, crackers and veggie sticks--and by the end of the party
all the food was completely gone. 

Mrs. Best sharing the book with some of her students

The children who are in the book are now in second grade. You can see in the
photos how much they have grown! They were thrilled to get the books and so
were their parents. Almost all the children who are in the book came to the party, even
several who had moved to other schools.

I am excited about promoting this book and pleased with all the good
reviews. I noticed on Amazon that it is number one in Hot New Releases
for Children's Science Experiment Books.
I thank Jennifer Best, her kindergarten students of 2014-15, their families, and everyone at Charlesbridge for helping to make this a great book!

NEW BOOK! Hatching Chicks in Room 6, Official Publication Day

HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6, Text and Photos by Caroline Arnold (Charlesbridge, 2017)

TA-DAH! Today is the official publication day of HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6!
On May 12, 2014, I was invited to do an author visit to Haynes Center for Enriched Studies elementary school in West Hills, California, in honor of Amy Werner, a librarian who had worked for many years in schools in the area. After my presentation, Jennifer Best, a kindergarten teacher at Haynes, asked me if I had ever written a book about hatching chicks. Each spring, she brought eggs to her classroom and hatched chicks. But, she told me, she couldn’t find any books that were written at the right level for her kindergarten students. I said I hadn’t written any books about chickens, although I had written a number of books about other kinds of birds. I liked the idea of a book about hatching chicks, and a year later I was in Mrs. Best’s classroom learning about eggs and chicks and documenting the process with photos. HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 is the result of that project.

I thank Jennifer Best and her students for sharing their chick hatching experience with me. The children’s enthusiasm was contagious as they learned about chickens and eggs and cared for the growing chicks. I am extremely grateful to Jennifer for her wealth of knowledge about hatching chicks in the classroom. I couldn’t have done the book without her. I also thank the children and their families for their cooperation throughout the process. The fourteen chicks who are the stars of the book are now adult chickens. It was a remarkable journey watching them hatch and grow.
I also thank my editor Alyssa Pusey for her careful editing of the text, art director Susan Sherman for the very attractive and readable design of the book, and all the staff of Charlesbridge for their contributions to the project.

HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6 is available as both a hardcover book and an ebook. For details click HERE.
For more about the book, go to the Hatching Chicks page at my website: http://www.carolinearnoldbooks.com/hatchingchicks.html

Author Visit, the Meredith School, Philadelphia, PA

Last week I had a wonderful visit with Jennifer Jutzi’s 1/2 class at the Meredith School, a public school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I shared my recent books, we talked about birds and measured the students’ wingspans, watched my slides, and finished by reading The Terrible Hodag and the Animal Catchers. The children had read several of my books before my visit and I was impressed by their knowledge and good questions. I thank Jennifer Jutzi for allowing me to visit her class, and my good friend Esther Baker Tarpaga for helping to arrange the visit. Esther’s daughter Windega is a student in the class and was eager to show me the newly hatched chicks which were hopping around in their brood box. By this time next year the students will be able to read my new book coming out in 2017, Hatching Chicks in Room 6.