Donna M. McDine, Award-winning Children's Author

DONNA M. McDINE

Award-winning Children’s Author

Author Visit Programs

Invite multi-award winning children’s author, Donna M. McDine to your school for a fun day of hands-on workshops. Prior to Donna’s school visit, she will meet with you in-person or discuss via telephone your curriculum and how best to structure the workshop around your state guidelines.  

Workshop 1: The Golden Pathway Educator’s Guide

The Golden Pathway Educator's Guide is a comprehensive across the curriculum based teaching tool for English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Art teachers, as well as Homeschooling families. Teacher’s can select one activity from the guide to engage the students with during the author visit.

ACTIVITIES:  

• Language Arts: Writing/Vocabulary
• Integrated Language Arts/Social Studies: Topical Study/Presentation Boards
• Social Studies: Timeline, Mapping and Geography
• Math: Map Work Mathematics, Calculations, Time, Recipe Math, Quilt Math
• Science: Astronomy, Skin, Plants and Crops, Alcoholism, Five Senses
• Role Playing, Disguises and Escape/Safe Houses
• Toys and Games of the 19th Century: Make a Rag Doll, Make a Nettie Doll, Information on Games/Toys
• Songs of Slavery and the Underground Railroad: Background Information and Lyrics
• More Fun Art Projects, Activities, and Resources: Coloring Sheets, Printables, Juneteenth, Make A Tin Can Lantern 

The workshop will begin with showing The Golden Pathway book trailer to the students. Upon conclusion, a description of the activity (selected by the teacher prior to the author visit) will be introduced to the students and then the activity will begin. The Golden Pathway Educator's Guide is available upon request.

Workshop 2: The Golden Pathway Lapbook

Creating a lapbook is a wonderful way for students to ‘visually organize’ all kinds of information, pictures, mini-booklets, written work, diagrams, graphs, etc... This particular lapbook, based on Donna McDine’s book, The Golden Pathway, will be a resource for children to make, then hold in their hands or place on their laps to review what they have learned about the Underground Railroad and slavery through Donna’s story. A template, step-by-step directions, and a supply list will be available for educators and parents to use with their students to create The Golden Pathway lapbook.

A lapbook is simply a creative means to display information from unit studies, topics, or projects, and it is a very ‘hands-on’ resource. Lapbooks are usually created from a regular file folder (or folders) that are refolded and filled with mini-books, foldables, flaps, pockets, graphs, etc. A lapbook is a fun and educational resource that will enable students to display and revisit what they have learned for years to come!

Workshop 3: Meet the author, where story ideas come from, and Q&A

The session begins with a brief introduction and showing of The Golden Pathway book trailer followed by reading an excerpt and discussion as to what the students know about the Underground Railroad.

Donna will then share with the students how journal writing affects her writing and how it correlates to developing story ideas. Donna will then present each student with a pocket journal and pen and will ask them to write about how they enjoy spending their weekends. After about 10 minutes students will be asked to share their journal entry with the class if they so wish.

Workshop 4: What Happens Next or Non-fiction Graphic Organizer

Your session will include the reading of the short story or non-fiction article aloud to the students followed with a short discussion and Q&A on the reading and interactive breakout sessions.

At the conclusion of the reading, the students will participate in a group breakout session to brainstorm and develop a new ending or what happens next in the short story. 

If the reading includes a non-fiction article the students will also participate in a group breakout session to develop a graphic organizer and illustration of the topic discussed.

NOTE:

All workshops are scheduled around a standard classroom timeframe of approximately 40-45 minutes. 

A personalized Certificate of Participation will be presented to each student and special handouts curtailed around the workshop will also be distributed to the students.

RATES: Available upon request.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Donna M. McDine

334 Washington Street

Tappan, NY 10983

845-721-7802 – Cell

donna@donnamcdine.com

www.donnamcdine.com

www.donna-mcdine.blogspot.com

www.thegoldenpathway.blogspot.com

My School Visit to St. Dominic's - Friday, April 8, 2011:

My recent school visit to St. Dominic's was a terrific learning experience! A visit I would enjoy conducting over and over again. St. Dominic's is an alternative school for children with special needs and the enthusiasm from the students for my visit was overwhelming and heart touching.

We started off our two hour visit with the classroom teacher, Ms. Jacqui introducing me to her students, I then in turn asked each of them to introduce themselves. With introductions complete, I discovered much to my delight, Ms. Jacqui and the students prepared themselves for my visit beforehand by writing questions on index cards they wanted to ask. Focused and on task, the ease of conversation was exhilarating and we moved on to watching the book trailer of The Golden Pathway and reading an excerpt.

I then shared my experiences of journal writing and discovered several of them enjoy writing. This was the perfect opportunity to give them each a pocket journal and pen and asked them to write about how they enjoy spending their weekends. After about 15 minutes they each shared their journal entry with the class. I then encouraged the students to continue with their journal writing for enjoyment and before I knew it, it was time to say thank you and good-bye. Encouraging them to stay in touch through Ms. Jacqui.

The feedback that very afternoon from Ms. Jacqui via email set the tone for a wonderful weekend:

"The kids absolutely loved having you come in and talk to them! Your book is amazing and since we have recently learned about the Underground Railroad the students were able to connect with your book easily. They also LOVED the journals and your ideas/inspiration for writing in them! Carol and Peter spent computer class doing just that! They are all bright kids and your talent of coaxing them out of their shells was effortless. They really enjoyed meeting you and the time you took to get to know them a bit over the course of your visit. Thank you." Ms. Jacqui, St. Dominic's

A wonderfully exciting and affirming time as to why I write for children!

My visit at the Tappan Library, Tappan, NY recap.

On Monday, January 17, 2011 I visited the Tappan Library, Tappan, NY in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day when I presented my children's book The Golden Pathway.

Prior to showing the children and parents The Golden Pathway book trailer we chatted about what they knew about the Underground Railroad and provided them an opportunity to ask questions after reading them an excerpt of the book.

It was quite the lively conversation with a few of the older children expressing that they would do whatever it would take to help slaves reach freedom if they lived then.

Several more expressed interest in writing their own stories and I took this opportunity to talk to them about the Guardian Angel Kids Ezine http://www.guardian-angel-kids.com and their chance to submit their stories for publication consideration. The parents happily provided their email addresses to receive the submission guidelines. To see the excitement from the children with not only reading, but with writing too is an experience every children's author is thrilled to experience. I know I was!

I would also like to share with you the heartfelt feedback from several of the parents via email: 

"Donna is adept at relating well to young children. Her book deals with an important subject and a difficult time in our history with grace and simplicity for young minds. The story comes alive through the characters' feelings so that all children can understand the courage and sacrifice by both David and Jenkins. The book would be a great tool for learning in schools." ~ S. Cama

"We were happy to attend your presentation on The Golden Pathway and thought you did an EXCELLENT job!! Brady had so many questions at the dinner table about the Underground Railroad, which made for very stimulating conversation!! Also, he was looking at the pictures in your book all evening long and is very excited for me to read it to him!! Congratulations!" ~  Amy Clarke, M.Ed.,

LiveFree Coaching and Personal Fulfillment Coach

"Donna's beautifully designed title about the underground railroad or 'the golden pathway' illustrates clearly for young readers the history of the deep-rooted racial divide in our nation. It helps our children grasp the significance of more modern tragedies like the assassination of Martin Luther King and serves as an outstanding complement to standard 2-6 grade course material about slavery, emancipation, and the perennial kindness across the color line. Donna's presentation at the Tappan Library needs to be replicated across schools and libraries. It speaks to listeners as young as Kindergarten and teaches children more than 'just a story' about the freeing of a slave - it teaches children about the importance and power of empathy that sprouts in childhood and grows with the person through adulthood." ~ Jill Gross, Librarian, Tappan Library (Tappan, NY)

4th Grade Class participated in the Kids Book Reviews - Musing Our Children reading and writing activity during the 4th quarter of the 2007-08 school year.

The students read the book Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynold Naylor.

Upon completion and submission of their book reviews, I made a class visit to the students and presented them with a booklet of their book reviews and a certificate of participation.

The students were especially thrilled to learn their class will have a designated page on the Musing Our Children website and that their reviews will be published for the world to see.

In conjunction with Musing Our Children (http://musingourchildren.tripod.com), I conducted my first ever school visit to Haverstraw Middle School on November 19, 2007.  I met with two sixth grade classes.  The first was with an ELA (English Language Arts) class.  After a brief introduction by teacher, Mrs. Debra Brennan, I immediately drew the students in with tidbits of my youth and briefly explained to the students about my background. 

A fictional short story was read out loud to the students.  They were then broken into groups of four to brainstorm and develop a 3-4 sentence paragraph regarding the last sentence of the story: “Hey, wait up.  Let me tell you how I scared the last new kid.  You’ll laugh your head off.”

It was also shared with them that their brainstorms and paragraphs do not need to be perfect.  The concept of the activity was to have fun and to get their creativity going.

The second group was a Science class.  Again a brief introduction was conducted by the teacher and myself. 

Before beginning to read the non-fiction article on jellyfish, I engaged the students in conversation about different species of the ocean.  The article was read out loud to the students and then were broke up into groups of four to develop a graphic organizer of eight characteristics of jellyfish. 

Even though this age group is use to working independently the teacher and I walked around to the groups to check on their progress and to see if they needed guidance.  Both classes jumped right into their tasks without hesitation and produced fine results. 

The enthusiasm, creativity, and group work of the students was quite the rewarding experience!