Author Visit at Park Century School, Culver City, CA

Last Tuesday I spoke to students and teachers at Park Century School in Culver City as part of their week of celebrating reading. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and good attention and their excellent questions at the end of my presentation. I thank librarian and reading specialist Sarah Ziolkowska for inviting me and doing such a good job of organizing my visit. It was a pleasure to get to know her and to meet the other teachers and a staff at Park Century.

Author Visit, Mount Vernon Elementary School, Bakersfield, CA

Welcome Sign, Mount Vernon Elementary School, Bakersfield, CA

On Monday of this week I had an excellent author visit at Mount Vernon Elementary School in Bakersfield, California where I was greeted with a colorful welcome banner. I did three large assemblies for students in kindergarten through sixth grade and a shorter assembly for the afternoon pre-kindergarten children. I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the students during my program and the excellent questions they asked during the question period at the end. 

Signing books in the library

In the middle of the day I had the chance to meet some of the students in the library during the book signing time. Each one seemed thrilled to be taking home a new book personally signed by the author. I thank Tina Zito, the Academic Coach, for doing an excellent job of organizing the day and making sure that everything ran smoothly. I also thank her for a very tasty lunch  in the teacher’s lounge and for the delicious cakes she ordered to share with the teachers and celebrate Authors Day. Altogether, it was a very successful Author Day!

WHAT TIME IS IT? Project: Make a World Time Zone “Clock”

Paper Plate Time Zone "Clock"

It takes 24 hours for Earth to make one complete revolution in space.  As each hour passes, Earth rotates approximately 15 degrees of longitude.  In 1884, at the International Meridian Conference, it was agreed to divide the world into 24 time zones measured from the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England.
What time zone do you live in? You can make a time zone “clock” that will help you figure out what time it is in other parts of the world compared to the time where you live.

You will need:

• scissors
• 2 paper plates
• ruler
• pen
• brad

1.  Cut the rim off one paper plate to make a flat circle.
2. Use the ruler and pen to divide the circle into 24 equal pie-shaped sections. Start by dividing the circle into quarters and divide these in half to make eighths.  Then divide each of these into three smaller sections.
3.  Write “London, Greenwich Mean Time” in one of the sections.  Then, continue clockwise writing the name of a city in each of the following time zones.
4.  Place the circle with the city names in the center of the other paper plate.  Fasten them together with the brad.
5.  On the rim of the plate, above the pie section that says “London,” write “12:00 Midnight”.  Continue in a clockwise manner, writing 1:00am, 2:00am, 3:00am, and so on until you return to 12:00 Midnight.
6.  Look at the time on the rim of the plate above the time zone where you live.  That is what time it is when it is 12:00 midnight in London.  When you rotate the circle so that the time on the rim is your current time, the other pie sections will tell you what time it is in other cities in the world.

Note: If you need to adjust your time according to daylight savings time, remember: spring forward (add an hour in spring); fall backward (go back an hour in fall.)

You can find this project and many others in my book The Geography Book: Activities for Exploring, Mapping, and Enjoying Your World. It is available both in paperback and as a Kindle book.

Charlotte S. Huck Children’s Literature Festival, Redlands, CA

Festival Poster created by Peter Brown

Last week I participated in the wonderful Charlotte Huck Children’s Literature Festival, held at the University of Redlands, in Redlands, California. It is named in honor of Charlotte S. Huck (1922-2005), who championed children’s literature throughout her long life and career. The festival brings educators, librarians, parents and students together with award-winning speakers and celebrates children's literature and the inspiration it brings to young readers.
Keynote speakers this year included illustrator Peter Brown, poet Rebecca Kai Dotlich, writer Marc Tyler Nobelman, novelist Avi, writer Jennifer Holm, and illustrator Lois Ehlert with editor Allyn Johnston.
Between the keynote speeches we had many choices of breakout sessions.  I presented a breakout session on Friday afternoon called From Polar Bears to Zebras: Nonfiction books as Springboards to Reading, a hands-on workshop featuring fun projects and classroom activities linked to my books. I thank Peggy Constantine for her assistance during my workshop and for introducing me. I thoroughly enjoyed going to several of the other breakout sessions. I went to Marilyn Carpenter's book review session, story telling with Adrien Lowery, and Kristine O'Connel George's and Deborah Kai Dotlich's poetry jar jamboree.  It was hard to choose! As a special treat during the conference, we were all entertained by singer/music teacher Emily Dale who had turned several of the authors’ picture books into songs.

At the book signing table at the Charlotte Huck Literature Festival

Participants in the conference had the opportunity to buy books and have them autographed during the festive (and delicious) reception before the Friday night dinner. Other California authors who also participated in this year’s conference were Erin Dealey, June Sobel, JaNay Wood-Brown and poet Kristine O'Connell George.
This was my second time at the Charlotte Huck Children's Literature Festival and I thoroughly enjoyed it once again. The success of the conference is due to Chair Marjorie Arnett and the hardworking Festival committee, whose members work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure everything runs smoothly. They are already at work on next year’s Festival, which will celebrate twenty years!

UCLA Writer's Program Scholarships

For more than thirty years I have taught in the UCLA Writer's Program. My courses have focused on writing for children, but the program offers hundreds of classes in all kinds of writing from screenplays to novels and more. I have just learned that scholarships are available for promising writers.  Here is the information:

Applications are now available for the 2015-16 Writers’ Program Scholarship, which covers the cost of three full-length Writers’ Program courses during a one-year period. The deadline to submit is Monday, June 29^th, 2015.

http://writers.uclaextension.edu/scholarship/.

For more information about the scholarship, please contact Katy Flaherty at kflaherty@uclaextension.edu or at 310-206-0951.

Click here to read an article about the scholarship: http://writers.uclaextension.edu/2015/02/09/announcing-the-2015-writers-program-scholarship/

Click here to read about the 2014-15 recipients: http://writers.uclaextension.edu/2014/10/06/introducing-our-2014-15-scholarship-recipients/

Author Visits in the Madison School District, Phoenix, AZ

At Madison Rose Lane Elementary School with Jahnvieve and Deborah Reker

I have spent the last week doing author visits at four schools in the Madison School District in Phoenix, Arizona: Camelview, Rose Lane, Simis and Madison Traditional Academy.  The first three are primary schools, grades K through 4 and Madison Traditional Academy has students through grade 8. (I presented to K-6.) At all the schools I did four presentations and also autographed books that had been ordered ahead of time.  I thank Deborah Reker, District Librarian, for doing a terrific job organizing my visits and helping to coordinate each day. And I also thank her hard working library team–Valerie, Jahnvieve, Vicky and Cotton-- for preparing the students at each school for my visit by familiarizing them with my books and organizing the book signings. At each school I received a warm welcome and an enthusiastic response to my program. I also thank my friend and super librarian Mary Wong for making the connections that made my visit to Phoenix possible. It was a busy but very successful week! 

Author Visit to All Saints Episcopal School in Phoenix, AZ

Yesterday I had an excellent visit at All Saints Episcopal School in Phoenix, Arizona. I gave three presentations in the Parish Hall to students in kindergarten through sixth grade as well as doing a visit to the children in the pre-kindergarten classroom. I was pleased with the good response to my program by both students and teachers. As always, the last part of my presentation was the time where the students could ask questions. I was impressed by the variety of questions. One of my favorites was “Did you stay awake at night to see the activity in the different habitats?” My answer:  In some cases, yes. Another question was, “Why did you organize the habitat books with each page at a three-hour interval?” My answer: Because that was what worked best for the length of the book. And another question: “Why do you illustrate your books with artistic pictures instead of photographs?” My answer: For one thing, because it is hard to take pictures of animals that are active at night!  There were lots of other good questions as well, but these questions showed me that the students had looked carefully at my new books in the Caroline Arnold’s Habitats series. 

I thank Librarian Jenny Oleksak for inviting me to All Saints and for doing such a good job of preparing the students for my visit and managing the book sale. I also thank the parents for their generous support and for the delicious morning coffee and lunch. I think it was a very successful day!