During the week of May 13-17, the Claire’s Day authors and illustrators will visit schools across Northwest Ohio. If your school is scheduled to welcome an author or illustrator, you can begin to introduce your special guest to your students by connecting their work with the following activities. Each class in your school can select a different book to use for their enrichment activities, or you can read a variety of the author’s or illustrator’s books and do different activities with each one. Let your creativity shine, and enjoy!
- Have a door-decorating contest with scenes from the author’s books the week of the author’s visit to showcase their talent.
- Assign the students to write questions or letters to the authors. Some writing prompts could include:
- What did you like about the book?
- What would you have changed if you were the author?
- What parts of the book would you would have liked to know more about?
- How do you think the author came up with the idea for this book?
- If you were going to write your own book, what would it be about? What story would you want to tell?
- Have students read several of the author’s books and then ask the students to compare and contrast the books.
- Invite students select one of the author’s books and write an alternative ending for it.
- Rewrite or retell the story from the perspective of a different character in the book.
- Separate out text of a book by one of the authors or illustrators and print it in black and white on a single sheet of paper. Have the students do their own illustrations based on the story before showing them the ones from the book.
- Relate the story to its historical context. What is accurate for the time period in which the story was set? How would the story be different if it had been placed 100 years in the past? In the future?
- Reinforce a science lesson that relates to the story.
- If there are plants or animals in the story, what more can you learn about them?
- What role does nature or weather play in the story?
- If the story includes any music or songs, play those songs for the students. Invite them to make up their own dance moves as a team and teach them to other teams in your class.
- Invite the students to discuss the relationships between characters in the story. Which characters were friends? Which characters encountered conflicts? How did they address their conflicts? Did it work? What might they have done to solve the problem differently?
What other ideas do you have? Share them with other educators on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/clairesday.
