HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Guest Post by Susan L. Roth

Many Americans welcome the new year with parties, fireworks, feasts and champagne at midnight. And what do we do the morning after? We make lists of New Year’s resolutions. Do we keep them? Well, we try.

New Year’s Day is our once-a-year-day for a clean slate, yet another chance to do better and be better. On New Year’s Day everyone is full of good intentions.

New Year's Eve in NYC, Illustration Susan L. Roth

Diets and exercise usually top the list, but really, lists can go on and on and on: Read more good books, work harder, work longer, be more polite, stop being impatient. No more bad words, go to sleep earlier, get up earlier, hang up clothes instead of dropping them on the floor! Be better! Be nicer! Be more generous! Be more appreciative! Be a better friend! Be a better neighbor! Be tolerant, be understanding, be kind, be GOOD!

Chinese New Year, Illustration Susan L. Roth

Once the list is begun, it can quickly fill the page, and usually the list is adhered to, at the beginning, anyway. But what if we were given a plethora of second chances for celebrations as well as for second chances to improve ourselves?

Every Month is a New Year, (Lee and Low, 2017) a book of poems by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by me, is a book full of Happy New Year celebrations from all over the world. I learned so much from making the pictures for this book:  there are no two even similar looking. And as for resolutions, every page turn affords a fresh start.

Muslim New Year, Illustration Susan L. Roth

Herewith I am presenting you with another big list full of related activities for students, at least enough for an entire happy new year.

1-Ask students to write a short piece about the new year celebrations that they enjoy in their own families. 

2-Suggest that they create an accompanying illustration. My favorite medium is collage, but they should choose their own favorite.

3-For the most energized, curious and adventurous students: let them try to find other new year celebrations not mentioned in Every Month Is A New Year that they can write about and illustrate.

4- Invite your group to make a joint project calendar of happy new year illustrations which could certainly begin in February or March. Pictures would not have to correspond with unusual-to-us month-specific celebrations, but rather, personal ones. If there are more than a calendar year's worth of students in your group, continue the calendar for as many months as there are students. The finished product could be presented as a big wall of illustrations as well as a calendar, designed to fill a bulletin board, and/or it could be a consecutive band of illustrations designed to go around the walls of a classroom.

5-Encourage each student to start his/her own list of resolutions. Designate one day every month for looking back to see how they did. Invite anyone who managed to keep his/her resolution for that month to give a 30 second speech telling about it. Was it easy? hard? worth the effort? Does the student feel proud and victorious? Take time for applause! 

Do the same for anyone who wishes to tell about failing in the attempt, with applause for the courage it takes to speak about the failure. (This should be handled with humor).

6-Encourage a designated time, probably monthly, to look into each of the cultures explored in Every Month Is A New Year. The back matter in the book includes great explanations and resources for each holiday.  For example: make a dragon; watch wheat grass grow fast daily, right before everyone's very eyes, in a little dish in the classroom; make a kite and fly it; eat green grapes. With permission and supervision, break pots. (Do skip fireworks and firecrackers).

7-Maybe you could even create a brand new holiday: Happy New Month! Let it include a short monthly LITTLE party, and don't forget the Happy New Month's resolutions.

8-Finally, here are some heavier thoughts to think about, write about, to illustrate. 

Encourage everyone, including teachers and librarians, to think about the concept and idea of starting new, starting over. Why is the possibility of one more chance to BE better and to DO better so important? Does hope REALLY spring eternal? And why do we have celebrations anyway? for incentives? for rewards? just because they are fun?

I hope this food for thought gives you something to ponder all year long.

http://susanlroth.com/

SELF-DESCRIPTION WITH SIMILE

by Jacqueline Jules

Simile may not be a hard concept for students to grasp. However, coming up with inventive rather than tired or trite comparisons can be challenging for many young writers. Luckily, Hanoch Piven has created two amazing picture books to help jump start creative thinking.

In My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks, Piven creates funny family portraits with everyday objects. On one page, Dad is described “as playful as a spinning top” and “as fun as a party favor.” The next spread shows a picture of Dad with a spinning top for a nose and a party favor for his right eye. Likewise, the family dog who is “as stinky as an onion” is humorously portrayed in a collage with onion eyes and a pepperoni nose.

At the back of the book, Piven challenges young readers to describe their own families, suggesting they make a list of ordinary objects that indicate “smart,” “soft,” “scratchy,” “strong,” etc. The use of objects provides a visual that should energize young writers wishing to provoke the same laughter Piven’s picture book does.

Piven tackles classroom portraits in My Best Friend is as Sharp as a Pencil with the same hilarious results. Different members of the class are described as “quiet as a fish” or “happy as gummy worms.” An afterward explains how Piven has conducted workshops in object art around the world.

If these picture books don’t stimulate inventive similes and lots of laughter in your writing workshop, nothing will.

Ask your students to collect simple objects to describe themselves, family members, or classroom friends. Give them the opportunity to make a collage and write a story about it. Have fun!

www.jacquelinejules.com

MAP COLLAGE

by Joan Waites

         School begins in the not too distant future, but for now, it’s time to savor the long summer days and special adventures either far from home or in your own backyard.

          A fun art activity to do with children incorporating these summertime experiences is to make a work of art using a map for an interesting background texture.

       

Collect a map from a travel stop, hotel, museum, local landmark or a roadside gas station. To create a drawing or painting, use the map to either paint on directly instead of paper, or use the map as a collage background. Paint or draw something you saw or an experience you had at the place visited. This could be a landscape or cityscape, a particular animal you saw, or a special person you met. The map collage can be glued to paper, cardboard or a small canvas. Use any materials you have on hand to execute the artwork-markers, paints, or colored pencils. 

To make a collage painting with a map background, follow the steps below:

1.    Gently tear a portion of the map into interesting shapes.

2.    Adhere the map pieces using school glue or Mod Podge onto the canvas, piece of cardboard or heavy weight paper.

3.    When the glue has dried, brush a light coat of either white acrylic paint or gesso over the map and entire canvas so the map fades into the background. Let the paint or gesso dry.

4.    Using acrylic, tempera, oil pastels or other drawing media, depict your subject matter of choice on top of the collaged pieces. Remember not to use the paint too heavily-you want some of the map to show underneath your artwork.

  Enjoy the rest of the summer, where ever your travels take you!

www.joanwaites.com

PAINTED POEMS

by Joan Waites

A fun springtime activity to do with students, which combines both a writing and art component, is to work on “Painted Poems.” Using an original or published seasonal poem, students combine type, paint, and collage to illustrate the written word.

For example, using a spring-themed poem by fellow Pencil Tips author Mary Quattlebaum, a collage was created by printing out the words to “Yellow Crocus.”

                                                                YELLOW CROCUS

                                                                (from Winter Friends)

                                                                                Spry

                                                                             sprocket

                                                                              up from

                                                                               earth's

                                                                           dark pocket

                                                                           you spring,

                                                                                 one

                                                                                 slim

                                                                                sprig

                                                                             wheeling

                                                                             summer-

                                                                               bright

                                                                                under

                                                                                 pale

                                                                                 sun.

Illustration by Joan Waites

To make a Painted Poem:

1.     Have students write an original seasonal poem, or use a published one.

2.     Print the poem out several times on a heavier paper that works well with watercolor paint.

3.    Have students use various colors to paint over the words. When dry, go over the flat colors again with additional colors making stripes, swirls, dots, etc. Crayons, colored pencils, or makers can also be used to make interesting textures.

4.    Once the paint is dry, cut out shapes and paste on another piece of paper to assemble the collage.

5.     If desired, use the actual poem as one of the collage elements, as in the example shown.

Happy Spring!

www.joanwaites.com

WRITING CONNECTIONS WITH KAREN LEGGETT ABOURAYA

by Mary Quattlebaum

I’m delighted to welcome Karen Leggett Abouraya to Pencil Tips.  Karen is a long-time champion of children’s books and literacy and first-time co-author, with Susan L. Roth, of Hands Around the Library (Dial 2012), an inspiring nonfiction account of people coming together to protect the great library of Alexandria during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.  Karen reflects on the joys and challenges of writing and offers a prompt to jumpstart youngsters’ thinking about their own civic engagement. The book’s back matter and Susan’s website www.susanlroth.com include information on the international “Let’s Hold Hands” art project, which encourages children to create and share their own self-portrait collaged paper dolls.   This could be a wonderful project for the classroom or home.

1.  I loved reading about a community acting together to ensure the continuation of a library.  It seems that libraries are one of the most important (and cost-effective) ways to foster a love of reading and to ensure the availability of books for everyone.  What was your greatest joy in writing Hands Around the Library?

My greatest joy was finding the opportunity to write a compelling story about modern Egypt – and collaborating with a good friend to do it (acclaimed illustrator and collage artist Susan Roth).  Children know all about pyramids and mummies and the Sphinx, but we tend to forget that Egypt is full of people living busy and interesting lives today.

Here are Karen and Susan in one of Susan’s collage illustrations for the book.

  

2.  Has the book had an impact internationally?

The book has provided an opportunity to share both similarities and differences in the lives of American and Egyptian kids. During a Skype session between students in Alexandria, Virginia, and Alexandria, Egypt, one American boy asked the Egyptian children, “What’s your favorite food?”  An Egyptian girl said, “Pizza and hamburgers.”  It may have been one of the more significant questions of the day because it reminded these kids that they are more alike than different.

3.  What was your greatest challenge in writing the book?

The biggest challenge was making sure we stayed true to what actually happened during the revolution in Egypt in 2011.  The “goosebumps” in this story come not so much from a sense of imminent danger as from seeing so many diverse people – rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, young and old – holding hands to save one community institution they all cherished.  We worked hard to give that message top priority in the story.

4.  Your school visits galvanize much discussion.  Do you have a writing prompt that might connect with the book?

I have conversations, more than writing exercises, with students, but this question would work as a writing prompt as well. The most interesting discussions have been generated when I ask, “What place in your community is so special that you would work hard to save it if it were going to be damaged or destroyed?”   The answers have ranged from the local animal shelter to a local park to the students’ school and homes to Chuck E. Cheese (yes, that was the very first answer I received to this question!). Then we talk about what you might do to save that place – especially if you are one kid or a group of kids – making signs, writing letters, organizing friends, gathering petitions, etc.  I’ve had some great discussions with kids on these issues of civic engagement.

Thank you, Karen!   Your prompt got me thinking about ways to save and strengthen libraries in the United States, many of which have been hit hard by budget cuts.

www.maryquattlebaum.com

SCRIBING FROM SUMMER'S SCRAPS

by Jane Harrington

It’s that time of year again: kids are sitting at desks, doing jumping jacks in the gym, and standing in lunch lines. The student body has returned! But what about the student mind? Is it still lingering on summer memories? Is it still off at soccer camp or traipsing the trails of Yellowstone National Park? Most likely. But don’t let the daydreaming drive you crazy. On that path creativity lies.

Scrapbooking about summer can be a great weekend assignment, or something students do together in class after bringing in personal collections of memorabilia. Ticket stubs from plays or museum visits, photographs from camp or a sleepover, feathers or cicada shells from a nature hike—these sorts of tidbits, glued onto pages of a journal, can inspire students to do some meaningful writing about those summer days that they’re not quite ready to leave behind. The length/genre of writing can be easily tailored to any grade level or standards.

Of course, this idea needn’t be limited to the classroom. It’s perfect for homeschooled writers, or for any families who want to savor the adventures and closeness that seem to too quickly get left at fall’s doorstep every year. The artistic side can be expanded, as well, by creating collages for the covers and decorating pages.

Tips: To make this a low-budget activity, find those super-cheap spiral notebooks that are always available in the fall. But don’t scrimp on the glue—you need a good quality craft glue to make journals that can become keepsakes.

www.janeharrington.com

Creative Journaling

by Joan Waites

School is out, summer is here, and if we are lucky, we have a little down time to devote to some creative projects we have been dreaming about doing all year. One way to jump start these ideas are to maintain a creative journal. Combining visual art with words can be a fun and satisfying project for any age.

An inexpensive journal can be purchased, but also easily made by folding blank sheets of paper in half and then covering the outside with construction paper or cardboard that can be stapled, glued or sewn together. Bring your journal with you wherever you go…the coffee shop, the park, the bus ride or on your vacation. Always be on  the lookout for something that inspires you to sketch, collage, or jot down future story ideas. Don’t be afraid to try something new, or if every page isn’t a work of art. Record what you see in your travels, document a feeling, or try out new art materials and techniques. A few words may turn into a future story; a doodle may evolve into a finished illustration or painting.

A few ideas for your journal pages:

-Make a collage using materials such as photographs, newspaper clippings, movie tickets, maps or bits of fabric. Combine them with paint, pastels, colored pencils etc., and use a black ink or felt pen to write around or on top of your collage.

-Young children (who are not yet able to write) can make prints with leaves, acorn tops, or other found objects by brushing on tempera paint and then stamping the painted object onto the journal page.

-Use some of the story prompts and creative ideas my fellow bloggers have outlined in their previous posts.

Remember it is more about the journey and experimentation rather than having a finished or polished product. Enjoy the places your journal can take you!

http://www.joanwaites.com/