WORKSHOPS STRUCTURED AROUND YOUR STATE CURRICULUM GUIDELINES
Invite children’s author, Donna M. McDine to your school for a fun day of hands-on writing workshops.Donna will meet with you and your colleagues prior to her school visit to discuss your curriculum and how best to structure the workshop around your state guidelines.
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. 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. Contact children’s author, Donna M. McDine at donna@donnamcdine.com, today to discuss your needs. RATES: INITIAL MEETING: To review, discuss, and structure the workshop around your state curriculum guidelines - FREE CLASSROOM VISIT: (Author Reading, Q&A, and 1 workshop for 1 individual class): $60 HALF DAY VISIT: (Author Reading, Q&A, and 1 workshop for 2-3 individual classes): $175 FULL DAY VISIT: (Author Reading, Q&A, and 1 workshop for up to 4 individual classes): $225
CHILDREN'S AUTHOR VISIT IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MUSING BOOK REVIEWS FOR KIDS
Teachers, this is an opportunity where your students will be encouraged to read and write, with no set deadlines, no particular books in mind...just mention to them they have their very own club to publish their writing.
Invite children’s author, Donna M. McDine to your school for an interactive discussion of the book chosen by the class for review. A personalized Certificate of Participation and booklet of the student's book reviews will be presented to each student at the completion of the book reviews.
The Musing Book Reviews welcomes reviews by students/children up to the ages of seventeen to submit reviews of books they've read.
What the Musing Reviews by Kids Club offers to a student:
offers them a site to publish their thoughts on books they've read
encourages them to read
teachers can use the Musing Reviews by Kids Club as a classroom project to read the same book then everyone can send in their reviews on that same book
encourages not only reading but writing, as well.
a downloadable Musing Reviews by Kids Club membership card to print and give to each child in your classroom
GUIDELINES:
Our guidelines are quite simple and we'd love to have your students/classroom participating all year round. This will not only encourage them to read, but to write and read their published reviews online on a safe website.
We need you to help them send me the following:
their first name
their age and grade level
city and country
the title and author of the book read
their review within the body of the email - couldn't have a review site without reviews. :)
email your info to: Donna McDine at: donna@donnamcdine.com and she will coordinate it through the MUSE KIDS REVIEWS.
If you will be conducting a group project with your students to read the same book, then send us your name and school's name along with the above, and we'll set up a webpage just for your classroom to showcase to one and all.
SCHOOL VISIT - 4th GRADE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
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.
SCHOOL VISIT TO HAVERSTRAW MIDDLE SCHOOL, HAVERSTRAW, NY
HUGE SUCCESS!
In conjunction with Musing Our Children (http://musingourchildren.tripod.com), I conducted my first ever school visit to HaverstrawMiddle 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!
