Known as The Creative Librarian, I love to read, write, and draw – just stop by my elementary school library and check out my bulletin boards and book displays (or follow me on social media) and you’ll see why!   This is why I am so excited about our children’s and teen’s workshop lineup this year. You and your child(ren) will thoroughly enjoy the variety offered at GBF 2018.

Elementary School

Journal Writing for Young Sports Fans

In an energetic and interactive workshop, join local children’s sports author Fred Bowen teach participants how to keep a sports journal about their favorite professional team or their own team

The Secret to Every Great Story

Participants will explore the question: what makes us tell each other stories? Through interactive activities, hunt for a secret to all great story-telling with author J.H. Deihl. This workshop is a great way to jumpstart writing one’s own story!

Drawing Dragons and Monsters

Come join author-illustrator Steve Light and learn how to draw a dragon and a monster! Steve will give some drawing demos of his favorite creatures and encourages kids and their grown-ups to follow along with him.

Popping up with Robert Sabuda

Ever wonder how pop-up books work? Learn from the world’s leading expert! Join bestselling children’s pop-up book artist and paper engineer Robert Sabuda as he leads children and their grownups on a pop-up making escapade.

Middle to High School

Make it Snappy!

Using mentor texts and examples from her own revision process, Author Sarah Albee will discuss strategies to help kids bring their own writing to the next level. Geared especially to those with an interest in humorous/lively writing, these craft techniques can be useful for writers of both fiction and nonfiction.

Untamed Voices – The Writer Within

Led by poet/writer/performer Vincent Hill, this workshop is a creative writing experience geared towards identifying the writer within each of us. In a fun, interactive space, participants will learn that everything in life can be a muse to their pen.

 Fantasy Prompts for Young Writers

In this workshop, published author Annabelle Jay will lead young writers in a series of fantasy prompts. Appropriate for beginners and more experienced writers alike, this session will inspire participants and give them several story beginnings to expand on at home. Adults are also welcome! 

Comics Character Team Up

Join author-illustrator Dave Roman (Astronaut Academy, Agnes Quill, Teen Boat) and special guest (it could be YOU)  for an interactive workshop that’s all about developing silly and unique characters and collaborating with fellow artists to create unexpected comic stories full of twists and turns.

See you at GBF 2018 on Saturday, May 19th!  ~Melissa McDonald (Children’s and Teen’s Workshop Coordinator)

I loved the analogy in this Nerdy Book Club post! I am just like the author’s daughter — I have an empty peanut butter jar filled with buttons, and it is fun to put my hand in there and feel the textures and shapes of the different buttons. Perhaps the 4-holed buttons could also be the two eyes of the adult and the two eyes of the child as they read a picture book together! Melissa

BOX OF BUTTONS, ROOM OF READERS BY DANA KRAMAROFF  (First posted in The Nerdy Book Club)

 Our readers come to us, like a box of buttons. I realized this while crafting with my three year old daughter. I watched her drag her fingers through, feel each one and bend her ear down low to listen to the sounds of them clinking together, ever so slightly. Through her eyes, I observed how she noticed, with wonder, all the vibrant colors, the varying shapes and sizes, some shiny and new, others worn and experienced.

In those moments, I considered how each button tells a story.

You dig in and hold one in your hand, inspecting it up close you wonder where it has been.

Like buttons, readers come to us and tell a story about their reading journey. Some readers are shiny and new, eager and ready. Some are worn and experienced. Some are even broken, their love for books, seemingly ruined forever.

The similarities between a button and the bookish or not-so-bookish student runs deep.

Within a box of buttons, some have four eyes, some two, and some none at all. Within our students we might see that their eyes for reading are not open yet to the magical feeling one finds when they experience a book and feel it to their core. Our students may read with two eyes open but may lack the know-how, that reading is more than simply decoding the words. And those readers with four eyes wide-open, are able to reach new heights in their journey for they have the power within them already, to truly attach reader to their identity.

We wish for all of our students to live like this, open to the possibilities of the page.

We might find a broken button at the bottom of the pile. We imagine what it must have taken for it to break, knowing it would require super strength and we wonder how the unthinkable could be possible. Some might consider giving up, just throwing it away, but no. We dutifully search for the other half and when we find it, we lift those pieces up and fit them back together. Two halves of a broken button seem beyond repair but super glue and the human spirit are mighty. Anything is attainable if we try.

A reader of ours might come to us, in the very same way. Broken or even hanging on by a thread. But that does not mean they are beyond repair. We would never dare to throw a reader away or give up on them.

Like the box of buttons my three year old is enamored with, we too, become enamored with our room of readers that were given to us and we hold them close. We may only have them for a short while, but for that time, they are ours as we gently push them to see their world open up with each book they complete.

Like a needle and thread, we weave our own love for books throughout the school day in crafty ways, in hopes we may connect child to book, reader to the courageous act of reading. We show them the way, sharing aloud the most stick-to-our-gut stories. We model our own reading lives. We inspire, so that by year’s end we can hold each in our hands and know that we have impacted their journey.

Dana Kramaroff is a K-5 Instructional Coach. She is a proud fellow of the National Writing Project and is a co-director of her local site: the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project. In addition to being enamored by her work with teachers and students, she is a mom of three, a wife, a reader and writer, and an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Dana would be very happy to connect with you! Follow her @litdanak.

via Box of Buttons, Room of Readers by Dana Kramaroff

Encouraging our students to embrace the growth mindset is an important focus this year at my elementary school, and  International Dot Day, inspired by Peter H. Reynold’s book The Dot, is a an effective way to engage students.     International Dot Day is one of my favorite days in the world of children’s literature, and I love to help my students make their marks by celebrating courage, creativity and collaboration.   Younger students created dots in their frames – remembering to sign them – and older students created collaborative posters with dots.

Peter H. Reynolds writes a series of books, all with a theme of growth mindset, and they are wonderful additions to my school library, as students and teachers alike check them out.