I would love to visit your school and meet your students! I offer a variety of programs, and am open to mixing and matching or brainstorming with you if you have other ideas - I know budgets are tighter than ever. I’m also happy to visit multiple classes for shorter amounts of time, if you wish to share the cost between classroom budgets. I’m flexible. My goal is for you to come away feeling good about my visit to your school.
I offer individual presentations, assemblies, breakout sessions, lunch with the author, half day visits and half day PLUS visits.
Tips for a successful author visit:
•Create buzz around the visit by making the day about SHOES. Your school could have “Favorite Shoes Day”or “Crazy Laces Day.”
•It adds excitement to the visit if the children are familiar with my book. You can order a few copies for the school and share them with the classes with which I’ll be visiting. (I’m happy to sign them for you that day)
West Valley Elementary!
•One 45 minute assembly presentation to K-3 (I will do a larger/whole school assembly, but find that smaller groups are more effective because I can target the content. (see assembly topics below)
•Brown-bag lunch with students or staff or a breakout session (see breakout topics below)
OR
•One 45 minute assembly presentation or one 30 minute breakout session (K-3).
•Brown-bag lunch with students or staff or a breakout session
•One 45 minute assembly presentation to K-3 (I will do a larger/whole school assembly, but find that smaller groups are more effective because I can target the content. (see assembly topics below)
•One 30 minute breakout session for 2nd or 3rd grade (see session topics below)
•Brown-bag Lunch with the author for select aspiring writers chosen ahead of time by their teachers (see details below) or lunch with the teachers.
•One 45 minute assembly presentation to K-3
•One 30 minute breakout session for 2nd or 3rd grade
•One Brown-bag Lunch with the author for select aspiring writers chosen ahead of time by their teachers
•PLUS One 30 minute writers workshop with aspiring writers (2-5) They can use this time however they wish – write to a prompt I give them, talk to me about being an author, I can share some of my stories that never made it and talk about why – or speak to something you are working on with them.
General Assembly Presentations
For a 45 minute presentation, which includes a reading of Shoes for Me! to the kids and 10-15 minutes of Q&A, I can talk about any of the following:
1.Rhyme Time. Making rhymes (fun interactive session where kids help me write a rhyming poem) (K-1)
2.Where do writers get ideas? (K-5)
3.The writing process: what do writers do all day? (K-5)
4.The publishing process, from manuscript submission to the bookstore. (K-5)
5.The editing process: how a book changes over time. (K-5)
6.Writing is not just limited to books: magazine writing, writing for the web, corporate writing, blogs, poetry. (2-5)
Shoes for Me! presentation
“Shoes Come in Twos” – includes a reading of Shoes for Me! to the kids and 10-15 minutes of Q&A. We can talk about counting by twos, dividing by twos, multiplying by two and even and odd numbers (K-2) I also have an interactive song about shoes to get everyone involved.
Breakout session topics for grades 2-3:
1.Writing with detail. How to make “sense” of your story. (talk to them about how adding sensory details add depth to a story)
2.Tenses – how changing tense can change the story.
3.Point of View – first person v. third person (narrator) and how that affects your story
4.Verbs that Move You – how choosing strong action words can spice up your story.
I request 10-15 minutes between sessions to prepare for the next group of students.
Travel expenses for distant or out of state visits to be discussed on a school by school basis.
I love to sign books! But I also understand that not all families can afford them. That’s why I would prefer that the books are ordered ahead of time through the school (I’ll provide pre-order form upon request). I ask that you please put a sticky note on the title page of the book with the child’s name so I can personalize it for him/her for the classes. I will sign them all that morning and teachers will be responsible for distributing them to the students later. This way, those students that were unable to purchase one don’t feel left out.
