Writing Rhyming Riddles like Guess Again!

Today I had a class visit from a T/K class from McKinley Elementary School. I knew it would have to be a very quick visit, because it would just be a part of their city center field trip. Fortunately, I had one of my favorite picture books on hand, Guess Again! by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Adam Rex.

Each spread of the book shows a picture that appears to be an animal, and despite a lot of hints in the rhyming riddle, it turns out to be a person--usually in a very odd and funny-looking position! I love Mac Barnett's writing style. Combined with Adam Rex's masterful illustrations, the book engages kids in thinking about rhymes and piecing clues together to solve a riddle.

The kids were great about guessing each animal that they were being led to guess, following the picture cues and the rhyme cues. (I'm thinking they would do a great job with the Listener Limerick Challenge on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!) And by the end, just when the kids are starting to get wise to the joke, the joke is once again turned around on them! To be honest, this might be a book you share with a kid who is particularly patient. There's something almost snarky about the way this book NEVER rewards you for guessing the obvious! 

After reading the book, I pulled out my big writing pad, on which I had a few prompts and blank lines written out.

I asked the kids to name an animal. The first child I called on said "Elephant" -- unfortunately, I don't know any good rhymes with "elephant" (though if you can think of any, please leave some in the comments!!!). So I had to call on someone else, and she said "Giraffe."  "Okay!" I said. "I can work with that one!"

We wrote out a few words that rhyme with giraffe (at least, the last syllable). Then we decided it would be a boy, and I asked the kids to start telling me what they know about giraffes. The first kid I called on for this section gave me a sentence about laughing, so I decided to make "Laugh" our special rhyming word. I put the word "laugh" in the box, and then wrote a draft sentence with the word "laugh" at the end.

Once we had a few other sentences about giraffes, we were ready to fill out our riddle. We decided that the end of the riddle would of course not be "Giraffe" -- like in Guess Again, we ended with a different person. Kids wanted a monkey, so we landed on Mr. Monkey, a favorite children's book character of mine.

Then I decided to cut a few extraneous words--editing is part of writing!

If you'd like to try out this activity, and use easy-to-print handouts to lead a group of kids to create a whole book full of these silly riddles, check out my book, 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing. And if you haven't already got Guess Again! by Mac Barnett and Adam Rex, buy it! It's a great one to have on hand for storytimes with kindergartners and up. 

Announcing the Winner of the November 36 Workshops giveaway!

Congratulations to Frances Price, a school librarian in Wendell, North Carolina! She won the Rafflecopter giveaway and will be receiving one copy of 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing, one copy of Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, and one copy of Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees!

I appreciate everyone who entered to win, and I'd like to share a discount code with you to make it a little easier to get 36 Workshops for the teacher or librarian in your life this holiday season!

Here it is:

WGKW19

Exp. 12/31/20

$5 off

36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing

978-0-8389-1648-3

Thank you again to all who entered. And congrats to Frances!

Announcing another giveaway! Enter to win!

Last year, I gave one school librarian and one elementary school teacher a free copy of my book, and some picture books they could use with the workshops in it. I figured it's time for another worthy teacher, librarian or parent to have the opportunity to try these writing workshops absolutely free!

Starting tomorrow, October 25th, until November 30th, I will be hosting a new giveaway for a free copy of my book 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing: From Aliens to Zebras, full of a school year's worth of weekly lesson plans for engaging primary-grade students with great picture books, using writing exercises and activities to spark their own creativity. I will also include two copies of some of the picture books that the activities are based on!

The book is $49 in the ALA Store and was "highly recommended" by School Library Journal:

As libraries strive to create lifelong readers, they may be overlooking a valuable element. Hurtado urges them to pair reading with writing, asserting that “creative writing is a child-driven activity that motivates [students] to learn how to write and makes them better readers.” To simplify the process, the author presents 36 “writing parties” revolving around picture books. She includes Common Core State Standards, a “PR Blurb” that discusses each lesson’s goals and summarizes the book being used, and all handouts needed. The lessons are blocked into segments ranging from five to 30 minutes, for a total of 60 to 90 minutes. The featured titles are grouped thematically into sections such as “Fractured Fairy Tales,” “Animal Muses,” and “The Plot Thickens.” Making a convincing case for including writing in children’s programing, this well-organized work covers all the necessary components to implement these lessons. A chapter on “Books To Feed the Young Author’s Spirit” and two appendixes—one explaining how to make blank books and one with story elements organizers—round out the volume. VERDICT Highly recommended for public and school librarians, who will confidently be able to infuse writing into children’s programs.–Laura Fields Eason, Parker Bennett Curry Elementary School, Bowling Green, KY

Despite the plethora of writing workshops aimed at young teens and tweens, research has shown that children can write much sooner than that, and that kids as young as kindergarten feel the desire to tell stories or make up characters on paper. Kids learn to read and write by doing it, and by being exposed to it and surrounded by it from a very early age. So when I am working with kids between the ages of 5 and 8 years old, I start with a good book and use that to inspire kids to think further than the book--"What happens now?" or "How could you write a story like this?" Kids start with a concrete example or mentor text and then create their own. They start out listening to a story, and end as storytellers.

So if you are a teacher, librarian, parent or educator and you'd like to try some new ways to excite your students or patrons about reading and writing, enter my rafflecopter giveaway below or visit 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing for more information and a free sample of the book!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Easy Peasy Comic Strip Activity!

The other night I went to an elementary school to do an outreach for their annual Dr. Seuss Pajama Night, and every year I try to give the kids something a little different, and appealing to all age levels. This year I used the handouts from my book, the lesson on the book The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems.

I brought this book and other Pigeon books along for parents and kids to read:

The nature of this particular outreach is that I'm set up in a classroom and families are coming in and out all night. So it's not really possible to do a storytime--people would only catch parts of it as they're supposed to hit all the classrooms before the event closes. They usually spend only fifteen minutes with me, so I brought an activity that required very little instruction.

I started out by handing each kid that comes in a copy of my handouts and prompting them with the question: "Do you like comic strips? We're making our own comic strips tonight!"

I also showed them the sample I made (feel free to steal this dialogue and use it if you like it):

The kids loved the cute little aliens and all the varied and dramatic expressions he/she/it makes! They got right to work cutting out the aliens and gluing them to the comic strip layout. Then they got creative with giving their aliens words:

Here are some of their finished comic strips!

It turned out to be the perfect activity for the wide range of skill levels and ages that all these children had. Everybody got something out of it and made something they liked. Everybody loves comic strips!

Presidential Campaign Videos for Our Favorite Toys

On July 13, 2018, we had a special creative writing and filmmaking workshop for kids between the ages of 5 and 8, to make campaign videos about getting their toys elected president!

The idea came from the book I've published with lesson plans to do writing workshops with primary grade kids: 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing From Aliens to Zebras. In it, you'll find my lesson plan for this writing party and the handouts to supplement this lesson.

First we read the book "President Squid" by Aaron Reynolds and illustrated by Sara Varon. Then we watched a couple of funny campaign videos on YouTube, and brainstormed a campaign video using a favorite toy as the candidate. We used a handout from my book to start writing our script ideas.

Then we filmed our toys talking about why they should be president, using iPads with the iClips app. It was very easy and smooth to film and edit. Parents took short clips of their kids acting these commercials out, and then combined the clips together in the app to make their films.

I made a film of my own to give kids some ideas for how to use the props or sample arguments to make. Is my video amazing?... Of course not. :) That was the point--I wanted to make something very simple that a five or six year old could make.



I made or purchased props from Michaels and the Dollar Store--it helped that July 4th was fairly recent and there was lots of American flag themed items on clearance!

Most kids brought their own toys, but I also had a few on hand to lend for kids who didn't bring one. I loved seeing the kids get into the filming and parents get really engaged with the filming and editing!

In hindsight, I wish I had encouraged the kids to all do their filming outside, because you can hear me yammering in the background while some of them were filming their videos. The kids who filmed outside the room didn't have that problem.

The kids also got to make campaign buttons for themselves:

At the end, I quickly uploaded all of the videos from the iPads onto a laptop and showed them. We held a vote on our favorite video. That's what it's about right?--elections! The winner was this one, by Abby V., about a Cookie running for President:



Here are the rest of their adorable films!



Isn't it just awesome how these kids are making arguments listing pros and cons, using character and voice, having fun with monologue and dialogue, as well as props, scriptwriting, staging, etc.? I can't wait to do this program again!

Community Helpers storytime for 2nd graders

Today a class of 2nd graders came to my library for a visit, and I was filling in for the person who normally has this class. They are doing a unit on community helpers, so I did a jobs-and-the-economy-themed storytime for them. And since they're 2nd graders, I was able to involve them in many ways as volunteers reading things and acting things out. We sang, read two books, acted out a play, did a reading and guessing felt board game, and watched a video. Read on if you would like to see these ideas for your next Community Helpers storytime!

First we sang the Button Factory song. It's a great song to get kids singing, moving, and laughing! I usually skip the part about the wife and kids and get right to the point, with the boss asking Jo/Joe to press another button. They loved it.

Next we read the book Weasels by Elys Dolan. In it we see that it takes a lot of weasels working in different roles, doing problem-solving and thinking up plots, in order for the weasel species to successfully take over the world!

Then we did an activity where I took out some felt envelopes and told the class, "I was supposed to help my mail carrier friend deliver her letters today, but they got all jumbled up in the bag and the labels came off. Can you guys help me figure out whom each one is for?" Five volunteers lined up and each one read the short letter that was inside the envelope--things like: "Thank you for healing my ear infection and giving me medicine"--and decided whether it was for a Doctor, a Teacher, a Janitor, a Bus Driver or a Plumber.

We read a West African/Caribbean folktale called Don't Leave an Elephant to Go and Chase a Bird by James Berry and illustrated by Ann Grifalconi. In it Anancy makes a series of trades, starting out with a corn cob and ending up with an elephant, but he lets the elephant escape when he gets distracted by a bird he wants to bring home for his son. I like this story for the theme of jobs because it helps the kids understand and explore what it meant to do a job in the ancient days before money was the typical payment. 

Then we acted out a play! It's one of the activities in my book 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing, from the chapter on folktales. 

Now, if I had more time, I would have involved the kids in actually writing the script of this play, but since our time was limited I wrote out the scripts in advance. There were five actors, including myself. Each person had an object that they didn't need and wanted or needed something else. I played the role of an alien who had crash-landed here and needed to fix my spaceship. The kids played other roles. 

The props I used were simple: a spoon, a bag, a rubber band, a stuffed toy and a roll of duct tape. I numbered each one and then gave the kids number stickers to wear. I told everyone that I needed to fix my spaceship and only had a spoon. I asked the first kid to act like he was slobbering out of a bag. I asked him why he was slobbering like that, and he said, "I wish I had something to eat with." Then I gave him the spoon, and he gave me the rubber band he was holding. 

I next came to a girl with long hair who was trying to dance but her hair kept getting in her face. I offered her the rubber band and she offered me a toy.

I next came to a boy whose child (played by a girl from the class) was crying. I gave the boy the toy and he gave me the roll of duct tape. Then I announced, "Hooray! This is just what I need to fix my spaceship! I guess it's my lucky day."

They did a great job with it and had fun hamming up their roles!

You'll find this activity and the handouts you can give kids to write their scripts in my book in "Lesson 10: Small Actors Folktale Theater."

Last, I showed an old movie from Reading Rainbow, and it was a big hit with the kids. We watched Fox On the Job by James Marshall. The story is funny and it shows kids that getting a job is no joke--you're expected to do what is needed and not get lazy or careless. Fox doesn't seem to be a very good fit for many of the jobs he has to do, but in the end he finds something suited to his talent for laying around.

Community Helpers storytimes are always in such high demand when you have classes coming to visit you or taking field trips to the library. So I hope these ideas will serve you well!

Congratulations to the winners of the 36 Workshops giveaway!

Over 50 people entered my Rafflecopter giveaway for a free copy of 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing! I loved reading everyone's entries and answers and seriously wish I could give all of you a free copy. You are great parents, teachers and librarians who clearly care about doing creative writing with your kids. So I'm working with ALA Editions to get you a discount off the retail price of the book and will be in touch as soon as I have it.

And, as it turns out, I decided I could afford to choose two winners, sort of a "first place" and "second place" which were just randomly chosen by the Rafflecopter site. Their names are:

1st Winner:

Marissa S.

Marissa is a school librarian who started doing creative writing around 7th grade, but hopes to expose her students to it much younger! She will be sent my book and three of the picture books used in my workshops:

• one copy of my book 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing
• one copy of How to Eat an Airplane by Peter Pearson
• one copy of President Squid by Aaron Reynolds
• and one copy of The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems

2nd Winner:

Selenne O.

Selene is an elementary school teacher, and I can't wait to see what she'll do with this in her classroom. She will be sent my book and two picture books:

• one copy of my book 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing
• one copy of How to Eat an Airplane by Peter Pearson
• and one copy of The Pigeon Needs a Bath by Mo Willems

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who entered to win, and although I could only pick two, I wish I could send you all something. I will be getting in touch with everyone else who entered to email you a $5 off coupon as soon as ALA Editions has them available!

Announcing a Giveaway for Educators and Librarians!

Starting April 1st, I will be hosting a month-long contest giveaway for a free copy of my new book 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing: From Aliens to Zebras, full of a school year's worth of weekly lesson plans for engaging primary-grade students with great picture books, using writing exercises and activities to spark their own creativity. I want to give a free copy of my book to one hardworking teacher, librarian, homeschooling parent or educator who works with kids under 10 years old. I'm thinking I will include a few other freebies, like a few copies of some of the picture books that the activities are based on!

Despite the plethora of writing workshops aimed at young teens and tweens, research has shown that children can write much sooner than that, and that kids as young as kindergarten feel the desire to tell stories or make up characters on paper. Kids learn to read and write by doing it, and by being exposed to it and surrounded by it from a very early age. So when I am working with kids between the ages of 5 and 8 years old, I start with a good book and use that to inspire kids to think further than the book--"What happens now?" or "How could you write a story like this?" Kids start with a concrete example or mentor text and then create their own. They start out listening to a story, and end as storytellers.

So if you are a teacher, librarian, or educator and you'd like to try some new ways to excite your students or patrons about reading and writing, enter my rafflecopter giveaway or visit 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing for more information and a free sample of the book!

Giveaway for 36 Workshops to Get Kids Writing