A Very Special Visit With Sharon Creech And Our 5th Graders At Van Meter

      

Back in December, I received a tweet from one of our 5th grade teachers, Aubrey Stafford, asking me for a recommendation of a new read aloud book to share with her students when they came back after the holiday break. 

I recommended Sharon Creech's new book, The Boy on the Porch.  I knew it would be a great fit for the 5th graders. 

I was excited to see that Aubrey loved it! 

As Aubrey and our other 5th grade teacher, Kate Goodwin, planned to read this with their classes as we started back to school in the new year, I also reached out to my friend Sharon to see if she would connect with the 5th graders as they read her book.  

  

She told me she would be happy to Skype with our 5th graders to discuss The Boy On The Porch, her other books, and being an author.  We were all thrilled!  

The 5th graders are now almost through the book and have really enjoyed it.  On Thursday, we connected them with Sharon and brought even more life to the book.  It is very powerful for our young people to be able to connect with the authors and illustrators that create the books they love.

To prepare for the visit, they all wrote questions to ask Sharon.  They did some research during the week and learned a lot about her as an author and person.

One of the topics we were most excited to hear about was the Newbery Medal she received for Walk Two Moons. She showed us her medal and told how she goes to it for inspiration.

There were a lot of 5th graders who plan to read this book after hearing her talk about it with us.

The 5th graders had the best time asking Sharon questions and discussing all of her books.

Sharon asked them questions about being writers too.

To read more about Sharon and her wonderful books, visit her website at http://www.sharoncreech.com/ 

Thank you Sharon.  You can see from this picture and tweet that you are such an inspiration to our writers and readers.  

And to me.  

I can't wait until you visit Van Meter School again.