Hey, Hey, Hay! We're starting Book Commercial Today!

It's that time of year! I'm very excited to start our second grade book commercial project again this year! One thing we want to do is connect our students with an actual published children's book author.  This step is so very important in the process.  It helps our students see that authors are real people and how they go about writing their books.

A few weeks ago, I searched Nepris.com for a children's book author who I thought could connect well to our second graders. I was very happy to find Christy Mihaly who seemed like just the right fit for our room. Mrs. Mihaly recently published two books, one of which is called Hey, Hey, Hay!  I sent her a message through Nepris and she agreed to be our author this year. 

Today was our first of hopefully a few chats where we talked about her books, her writing process, and how books are promoted.  Mrs. Zureick and I were so pleased to see that she related beautifully to the students, talked through the entire writing and publishing process, and even talked about how she needs to promote her books.  Wow!  I was surprised how much work goes into making a book successful. 

As she said to us, "My book isn't doing its job if no one is reading it." In other words, the book promotion is just as important as the writing process.  What an amazing segue into our commercial process.  Soon we will be working hard to promote good books in our school library and (hopefully) in local book stores. 

As an extra bonus, Mrs. Mihaly was even nice enough to take her laptop into her Vermont backyard to show us the fall colors in New England -- a welcome change to our unseasonably warm October days here in Kentucky.

Thank you, Mrs. Mihaly and Nepris for making today happen!

How We Talked to an Author 2000 Miles Away

I am currently working with our second grade to create book commercials that will be posted in our local public library as well as our school library.  I worked along with one of our teachers to do this project last year, but we wanted to make the project bigger and better for this year.  I'll get to the whole project in a future post, but today I want to focus on our author chats.

Over the summer, I contacted Nepris about our project.  If you've never heard of Nepris, you should hop on over there right now and create an account.  They will connect you and your class to a professional who can talk with your class about whatever topic you are discussing.  Think of what your next unit will be about.  Would you like to talk to a person who works in that field but don't know the perfect person to chat with? Don't worry. Nepris will set up a video chat with a professional so your kids can learn more from an expert.

Nepris connected us with Tricia Stewart Shiu who is an award-winning author, book reviewer, and motivational speaker, living in the Los Angeles area.  I had never heard of Ms Stewart Shiu before but I can honestly say she has quickly become a favorite in our school.  I have now been a part of two sessions with her and have a third scheduled in a couple weeks.  

Tricia has everything you could possibly want in a guest speaker for your class. She knows her profession well.  She understands the writing process and how to promote books and is able to communicate these skills to our students.  Not only is she knowledgeable, but she is able to bring that knowledge to the students' level.  Some people may accidentally talk over the heads of primary-aged students, but Ms Stewart Shiu doesn't do that.  She knows her audience well.  Finally, she is enthusiastic about her work and genuinely loves to talk to the kids about it. As we know from working with kids, enthusiasm is contagious.  As she displays her excitement about writing, the kids start to pick on that and get more excited for their projects too.  

I'm so glad that I was able to connect with Nepris and with Tricia Stewart Shiu.  I encourage you to find your professional expert today!