Saturday, May 21, 2011

Special Edition Literacy Café: Author Candace Ryan

This past week we hosted picture book author Candace Ryan in a Special Edition of our Literacy Cafés.  As part of the Café, we featured Ryan's picture book Animal House.  To read my review of Animal House, click here.

For the Animal House Café, we ran two multi-age group sessions:  one for kinder to second grade and one for students in grades three to five.  This was a special treat for children who were selected to participate.

Candace arrived with really cool props.  She met with small groups of students to discuss how she created her story and characters, and what it was like going through the publication process.

Students also had a chance to create different elements in making a group Animal House.

In the third group, students talked about creating animal hybrids and worked with partners to create, through drawings, new hybrid animals.

When all of the groups had rotated through the three activities, children had an opportunity to ask Candace questions about her book, writing, working with illustrators, and more.  During this time, children had milk with - yes - animal crackers.

Candace was a great guest in our Literacy Café.  She was wonderful with each group of students and they responded to all of the information she shared with enthusiasm and excitement.  Thank you Candace for such a wonderful visit!

Check out our animoto video:


For more information about Candace Ryan and her books, check out her website: http://www.candaceryanbooks.com/
You can follow her on twitter: @candaceryan
You can folow her on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Candace-Ryan/1185104167