A Visit with Monica Wellington!

Another great author visit has come and gone.  The preparation is always crazy for these visits, but well worth it!  What amazes me is that the authors are always smiling and thanking me.  I know I exhaust them but it's nice to be humored :-)

Monica Arrives

All the first graders, at a moment's notice, came out to the lobby to welcome and cheer Monica on as she entered school.  We pride ourselves on these arrivals!  Mrs. Kosinski's class even held up her books for all to see!

Signing Books

No rest for the weary.  We put Monica right to work!  She had over 100 books to sign. I don't know if you can tell, but she isn't just signing her name, she is personalizing every book with a name, a salutation and an illustration!  Beautiful!

Lunch Break

I invited some fifth grade Dewey Duty kids to join us for a BYOL (I did provide popcorn) with Monica.  It was nice and intimate and the kids really enjoyed it.  You can learn a lot from anyone and they did!

It was great that Mrs. Pusateri showed up at that moment so we could get a photo op with her, too!
She did a wonderful job organizing the Read Over Sleep Over.
ps-My clock in the back is broken again. Agh!

 Assemblies

First graders and kindergarteners came in for separate short assemblies in our Common Area in the afternoon.  It was great!  Monica shared with us pictures of her cats in her apartment, her writing and illustrating process along with the first book she ever published (when she was in first grade in Switzerland) and first versions of Mr. Cookie Baker.  It was fun to see how she takes a photograph and uses that as a guide for some of her illustrations.

The first thing Monica does before starting a book is sketch it out.

We are looking at the differences between an older version of Mr. Cookie Baker and the published book.

Monica with some of the first graders (and Seymour)

One of the kindergartners brought in his own copy of Crepes by Suzette for Monica to sign.

The view from Monica's apartment in NYC

One of Monica's first drawings she ever did in elementary school

More Mr. Cookie Baker - I was getting hungry looking at all those cookies!

And then the READ OVER SLEEP OVER! 

After a short opening with all the kids, Monica lead four small groups with an activity related to her books.  She shared how she uses artwork as a guide for some of her illustrations.  With that, she spread out postcards of famous pieces of art and students had to find them in her books.  Some were easy but some, like The Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso in Crepes by Suzette was a bit more challenging, but they all found it. And they found many more! AND they were so well versed in the artists, it was so impressive.  Kudos to our art teacher, Mrs. Pazienza!

 Part 2

The second part of the station was to take a postcard and create your own version of that painting. Once again, the kids were awesome.  Here's one group with their masterpieces!

Check out the clock (and this one works!)--Finally, we said our goodbyes.  It was a wonderful day and fun visit!  Stay tuned for a drawing Monica did of me leaping, of course!  I'm hoping to make it my new profile pic soon! Thanks again for coming to Castleton, Monica!