PBS Writers Workshop

Last weekend Holly attended the PBS Writers Workshop for the second year. It is held at our local TV studio in conjunction with their children's writers contest. She really enjoyed it last year and once again, she had a great time!

The host is a gal from Live Paint, who is amazingly talented! She does a wonderful story telling selection that is very interactive with the kids. As she works her way through the story telling she brings it back to writing your own story and inspires the kids to include so much more creativity than they might have before.

For Holly this was a great kick off to writing. She has officially started her story this week and it is coming along nicely. Her story is due at the end of the month - she is looking forward to finishing it up and entering the contest. I am excited for her!

Salt Art - Here Comes Jack Frost

Today Holly read the book Here Comes Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara. This book is beautifully illustrated, the artwork is vivid and really brings a winter feeling to the story. The artwork is a relief in rich blues and white.

After doing some salted paintings late last year I thought we could easily mimic this style of winter artwork from Here Comes Jack Frost. Holly and I had a small discussion on relief work, noting the relief portion is the picture created. On thick paper Holly created her design with blue painters tape. Once she was happy with her design she then painted the entire paper in a rich blue liquid water color and then sprinkled the painting in salt. After the painting dried she scraped the salt off and removed the blue tape to reveal her winter design. It turned out beautiful and she enjoyed comparing her art design to those in the book.

The Gingerbread Man

Today we read a couple versions of the classic story, The Gingerbread Man. The first was The Gingerbread Man retold by Jim Aylesworth. This book is beautifully illustrated and a wonderful version. The second was Gingerbread Baby as told by Jan Brett. This is also beautifully illustrated and a fun story. For a final version of The Gingerbread Baby we listed to a story telling version from StoryNory - a whole different experience, very well done. Here is a link to listen: The Gingerbread Man

Once we were finished, I set Holly up with a Venn diagram to compare the two books. I offered to sit with her and help but she insisted on doing the project on her own. I have to admit, she did a really nice job on her own. After completing her Venn diagram she also did a Read, Build & Write mat on words from the story, such as: gingerbread, oven, cookbook, wagon, peppermint, woods, dough, bowl, house, and fox. Using these for word exposure is a lot of fun!

And, to finish up Holly created a gingerbread from paper and supplies - it turned out pretty sweet!

Miss Fiona's Stupendous Pumpkin Pies

This year we came across two little wonderful 'witch' items... a book that is adorable and an art project that was equally adorable! These two items collided for us and from it we made a cute little combination.

Miss Fiona's Stupendous Pumpkin Pies by Mark Kimball Moulton is a book we heard a couple of years back for the first time. I have kept my eye out for it a few times with little luck. Well, a few weeks ago I came across this book while at the book store and we could not leave with out it. First we read it at the book store to make sure it was loved by all then we brought it home. This book is lovely, whimsical, poetic and illustrated with charm.

Today Holly read this book to me. She had a few words that proved a bit challenging (which is good) but she made it through. Since she is not quiet at the rhyming part of reading yet, I reread the book to the kids. We talked about her favorite part, looked at the illustrations and discussed if she would enjoy Miss Fiona's pumpkin pies or not.

Then she created an adorable witch art project. Starting with a quick look at Miss Fiona she picked her papers, cut out shoes, designed her socks, and made the witches dress. This is a super easy, quick project - but one that tied in so perfect with this book. We don't typically do much with witches as the idea is a bit scary for Holly... but this one is sweet and the project is cute!