Monday, April 29, 2013

Author's Fair THIS Saturday--Final Details Here!


Last Monday we had our Old School Monday "book binding" party, where you and your kids could assemble their poems onto the book pages and be done.  Judging by the number of families who showed up, I am guessing this has been a very full season for most of you, as it has been for us, and either you decided not to participate in the group book project or you ran out of time to get your family's pages done before the party.  Either way, it's ok.  If you have not finished (or started!) your pages for our group book this year, but wish you had, you still have time.  Yes, it is down to the wire--the Author's Fair is this upcoming Saturday, May 4--but the pages are easy to do and I'll show you here how you can finish and still have them in our book at the fair, if you still wanted to participate. 

In the last post, I gave you the details for formatting and printing your riddle--but I am amending instructions because I found our poems looked best with approx. 20 point font boldface.  So that's a slightly larger font size than I said before.  If you use the smaller font size, no big deal.  But if you see this before you print out, great.

Also, minor detail that does not affect your work but which I wanted you to know:  my girls and I decided to change the title of the book.  We found in our riddle generating that while our riddles were celebrating the natural world, they were ending up all being very broad and not quite meeting the idea behind the title "Our Big Backyard."  So we are changing the title of the book to "What Is It?  A Book of Nature Riddles."  So as long as your child's riddle is about something in nature, it will work perfectly.

If you still want your kids to participate in the book project:

--Bring your child's riddle printed out and the riddle answer printed out on a separate page to the Ocean Grove table at the Author's fair no later than 10:00 a.m. 

(If you have multiple children making riddles, their answers can go on the same page, with plenty of spacing in between--you will be cutting them out, as you will see below.)

--Bring glue sticks.  You can assemble your child's page there at the fair and add it to our book.  I will have all the other supplies you will need to finish your page.  Please do not bring regular glue--it will not dry in time.  Tape might also work.

--In the past we have met at the Ocean Grove table and then given the kids a chance to present their book all together at the Author's Chair.  If we do so this year, we will be meeting at 10:40 a.m., with the goal of presenting the book at 11:00.  Those of you who want your kids to present the book at the Author's Chair, please RSVP to this post by leaving a comment.  If no one is interested, I'd like to know so I don't hang around the mall unnecessarily.  : )  If no one RSVP's, we will just pass on that this year.  

Questions or comments otherwise?  Please leave them in the comments too, so everyone may benefit from the answers.


Finally, here are my girls' pages, as examples of what the final pages will look like (click on the images to see them bigger):


The front side of each child's page will have the riddle, bordered with colored construction paper.  Notice the poem is offset to the right, to allow for the holes we will add to complete the "binding."


The back side of each child's page will have the answer and illustration. 


So as you read the book, each riddle's answer is revealed as you turn the page.













My girls had fun with these!  They used the online "riddle generator" interactive I linked earlier just as a brainstorming tool, and then came up with their own riddle styles.   You own child's riddle can be as elaborate or simple as you and he/she wants.

Special thanks to Kathy Oak and Lucy Hiatt, who generously donated some of their Ocean Grove funds to help purchase the papers needed for the Old School book projects last year and this year.  Thank you ladies so much!




Thursday, April 18, 2013

Book "binding" party--NEXT Monday!

Ok, after a whirlwind Spring, culminating in the Abbey art show and STAR testing, I took a much needed mental Spring Break.  Only to realize, yesterday, that in doing so I neglected giving you all the final details about our Author's Fair book project this year, "Our Big Backyard." 

But I have a feeling most of you are like me, and are just now starting the project anyway. ; )  So if you have not started working on the project with your kids yet, it is not too late!  But, um, you'd better jump on it now, since we are scheduled to have our binding party NEXT Monday at the April Old School Monday gathering.  That gives you four days--so time to get busy! ; )

And please remember--this is meant to be a fun thing, not a huge hassle, so please keep that in mind as you help your kids with their pages.  The art may not be amazing (hey, that's what the Abbey art show was for) and the riddles may or may not make much sense.  ; )  But it's an opportunity for our kids to stretch their thinking, be creative, engage with words and ideas, and make art! 

If you have not already read the first posts about this year's project, please start here and here

Once you have read those, you know our theme and our writing style.  Now let's talk details of art and format:

The ART
--The art can be in any two-dimensional style and medium your child chooses!  I'm not going to direct my kids in a specific medium, but just encourage them to get out the markers and colored pencils.  For our family, this is not the time to try to get all fancy. 

--Your child's art must be made on a roughly 8" x 8" square.



The TEXT
--Please print out your child's riddle on a regular 8 1/2" x 11" piece of white typing paper

--The text should be centered.

--The text should be approximately 16-18 pt. font (whatever fits and looks good).

--Your child is welcome to choose the color and font style, but please use boldface.

--The answer to the riddle should be printed out exactly the same font style and size and boldface, but on a separate piece of the same kind of paper.

(If you have several children submitting pages, you are welcome to print their answers on one page, as long as you leave lots of room in between them, as we will be cutting them out on Monday when we assemble the books.)


Does this all make sense?  Am I forgetting something important?  If you have questions, please leave them in the comments to this post, so everyone may benefit from the answers. 

So, see you Monday, April 22 from 11-2 in the usual Vintage classrooms!  *And bring your supplies!  We will be using scissors, glue/gluesticks, and maybe pencils and markers.    


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

REEL Kids Adventures Series

I really love books.  And I really like to own them in our own library, which is probably the death of me.  Anyhow, my oldest daughter (age 9) recently picked up a set of books that I was holding onto until I thought she was ready (though she could have read them earlier).  It is a set of 10 books, which can be read independently - called "Reel Kids."  I personally know the author - Dave Gustaveson.  He has been serving in YWAM for a long time, and he's incredible!  These books are full of culture, adventure & challenges along the way.  The 3 kids in the story actually travel to different countries in need of Jesus, and video-tape the culture.  Its a wonderful blend of God's faithfulness & power in the middle of adventure!  Anyhow, I highly recommend these books if you have $ to invest in them.  YWAM Publishing is selling each set for $19.99 right now (5 books, each set), and you can probably find them cheaper on Amazon. 


Here are some handy links if you want: