Elementary students celebrated all things literary at their recent Author’s Day. The day was full of book related activities and included talks by two local authors.
In the morning, author Kayla Hendershot spoke to the students about the elements that make up a good story. She also told them about her book “Gracie the Dreamer” and how she got the idea to write a book. Illustrator Candice Thackeray, also worked with the elementary students and showed them the original paintings she created for the book and showed students a fun and easy way to draw people. The rest of the morning, second through fifth students looked at different illustrations and wrote a story based off an illustration. The younger students started working on writing their own Pigeon books. (The Pigeon is a popular series written by Mo Willems.)
In the afternoon, students heard from West Franklin High School Alum and Fort Hay State University student, Kale Link. Kale talked to the students via Zoom about his book which he wrote as a middle school and high school student. It is about a class of middle school students who magically get transported back to the Permian Period which was 299-252 million years ago (before dinosaurs existed). He showed the students pictures different Permian period animals and some cool dinosaur pictures from his summer internships as a paleontology student.
The rest of the afternoon had students rotating through stations based off Mo Willems books. The students played a book based quiz show game complete with buzzers to ring in to answer. They worked on building marble roller coasters, they watched videos based off books, there was a snack and doodle time, and PE activities in the gym (The Pigeon Must Go to School, The Pigeon will Ride the Roller Coaster, The Duckling Wants a Cookie, and A Big Guy Stole My Ball). Some of their work will be on display next week during evening activities at the school during the Book Fair.
Special thank you to Mrs. Brenzikofer for the hard work she put into the day.