Tag Archives: artist

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Love Projects: 4th Grade Family

After 4th graders finished reading the book Love by Matt de la Pena & Loren Long, Ms. Foretich (art teacher) and I asked them to think about the love that exists in their families outside of school. The book shows many ways that families show love to one another.  We had several powerful conversations about images in the book such as the dad and daughter dancing on the trailer, the mom & dad fighting, the older sibling taking care of the younger sibling, and the new parents huddled over the crib.  Each student had a different reason that a particular image resonated with him or her.

In the library, we gave students a chance to list out family members that they might be able to have a conversation with at home and what they might talk about in regards to how they show love to one another. Ms. Foretich setup a Flipgrid for families to record this conversation.  The link was shared in Class Dojo by classroom teachers and Ms. Foretich also sent a printed set of instructions home with students.  

A second piece of the 4th grade project was to also create an image of love.  This was very open to student interpretation. They could create symbols, scenes, words, or any combination that spoke to them.  These images were started in the 2nd session with 4th graders, and Ms. Foretich and I used this time to conference with each student about his/her plans for creating a recording with family members at home.  We were trying to make sure each student had a plan and also had access to the tools they needed to record. I always offered the library as an option for students and families to come in and record.

After this 2nd session, Ms. Foretich continued having students create their images, and we waited on students to film. We had some other teachers check in with specific students in order to encourage them to record at home.  In the final week before our author/illustrator visit, I noticed that many students had still not recorded, so I scheduled a session with each 4th grade class to come to the library and record their Flipgrid.  This option left out the “record with your family” aspect but at least it allowed each student’s voice to still be included in the project.  Students were able to talk about how their family shows love even if they weren’t with their family in the video.

Now, the 4th grade symbols of love are hanging at the entrance to our school, and our Flipgrid is continuing to come together.

Even as I write this post, I’m getting messages from parents asking if it’s too late to add their voice. I’m hopeful we’ll have more families add their voice even after our author visit occurs.

Please take a moment to listen to each family and student on this Flipgrid. You are welcome to leave comments for them on this post or react to their videos with the emoji reactions. If you find yourself at our school, take a look at 4th grades work as soon as you enter the building.

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Little Red & Rapunzel: A Skype with Bethan Woollvin

I’ve written about the magic of Bethan Woollvin’s Little Red a few times on the blog. It’s one of those books that captures an audience when it’s read aloud. The repeating lines, the bold color, the large scary wolf, the shocking images….all work together to speak to so many readers.

Our 2nd grade has been studying Bethan Woollvin’s work by reading Little Red, viewing some of Bethan’s art, and exploring some of the resources on All the Wonders. Students loved acting out scenes from the book using the story shapes from All the Wonders.

Students also loved putting the book over their face or using the cutouts to become the Wolf or Red.

Today, in celebration of her upcoming book Rapunzel, we skyped with Bethan to hear both stories and learn about her art and inspiration.

Rapunzel has some similar magic to Little Red.  There’s some repetition of the “snip, snip” of the scissors, and students love to put their scissor fingers up and snip along with the story.

The witch and her polka dot underpants steal the show when the book is read aloud, and you just have to pause and give the students a moment to point and laugh.  Without giving anything away, I’ll also say that there are a few images that elicit that same shock from students that they have when reading Little Red.  I loved hearing Bethan read parts of both books that had something gruesome or shocking. Her bubbly personality paired with Grandma getting eaten by the wolf was delightful!

I always love Skyping with an author or illustrator because they usually have original art, notes, or other artifacts that they can reach over and grab.  Bethan showed us a few early versions of illustrations from Little Read so that we could see how much they changed in the final version of the book. I loved the reinforcement that artists revise just like writers revise.

We saw some panel sketches from Rapunzel.  Students immediately made a connection to our current study of panels in graphic novels, and we learned that Bethan thinks a lot in panels when she is working. She also showed us images from Rapunzel that didn’t make it into the book or images that slightly changed after feedback from the publisher.

Near the end of our Skype, students formed a line to step up and ask questions. This is always a special moment because it’s so personal for each student to get to speak directly to an author or illustrator.

I loved that Bethan would often answer the questions and then direct it right back to the student to answer too.  For example, a student asked about what her favorite part of writing and illustrating was. After answering, Bethan asked the student what her favorite part of writing and illustrating in class was.  It reinforced that we are all working on our craft no matter what stage we are in. We have connections to one another.

At the close, Bethan talked to us a bit about how her books are published in the UK and US. Some of the words and illustrations change depending on the vocabulary or to help the flow of conversation. Since I had a copy of both books, we were able to take a close look while she shared this with us.

We are so excited to now have both Little Red and Rapunzel living in our library for readers.  Be on the lookout for Rapunzel coming from Peachtree Publishers on October 1!  Many thanks to Peachtree Publishers and Bethan Woollvin for making this Skype possible and to Avid Bookshop for our presales of books.