Finishing Jan Brett's Author Study

Last week we finished up our Jan Brett author study. Early in the week we finished writing a biography about her. Below you can see Philip writing that it takes Jan Brett about a year to finish one book.

We worked on a Venn diagram for the books "The Mitten"and "The Umbrella".  Most of the students wrote and illustrated in "The Mitten" circle that that animals climbed in a mitten.  For "The Umbrella" circle, most students wrote and illustrated that the animals climbed into an umbrella.  In the middle circle, most students wrote that they both have animals or that a small animal (mouse-"The Mitten" and hummingbird- "The Umbrella") is what makes all the animals fly out.

Throughout the week we also read two of Jan Brett's most familiar books. "Gingerbread Baby" and "Gingerbread Friends". We also read a couple other versions such as the original story and "The Gingerbread Girl". The students were so excited about the stories we decided to decorate or own but only after making a plan. Jan Brett helped us a little from a video we found on show to draw a gingerbread baby. The students each drew their own details then they got to create!  

Jan Brett and Gingerbread Baby- Youtube video

After illustrating we put our tools away and made a plan to what we were going to use all the yummy materials for.  Each student got two gingerbread cookies. It was their choice to whether they wanted to make a boy, baby, girl, mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, coy bow etc...  

They had several materials to use and their "glue" was icing.

The students then created their vision!

After we created and enjoyed our cookies we went back and filled 

in our gingerbread friends with color. 

I hope you all enjoyed learning about Jan Brett.  Ask your child about some of the cool things you can find in just about every book.  I'm sure they will be very excited to tell you all about Hedgie!  I also hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that you're enjoying the beautiful snow.  

Mrs. Atkin

Firefighters and Snowflakes

This past week we had three firefighters from the West Carrollton Fire department visit our school.  They showed the students all their gear and what it looks like for a firefighter to be all dressed up in their gear.  This is a great program our fire fighters do to ensure that children will not be scared and hide from firefighters if there is an emergency. 

To one of our students surprise, her dad was the firefighter to get all dressed up.  She was so excited to see her daddy!

They let us hear the sounds and noises of the air tank and told 

Captain Barnett to wiggle when they heard it!

 

Last week I received an email stating children from all over the country are making snowflakes to decorate the new school that the Sandy Hook students will be attending.  So, Friday we finished our week by making snowflakes for the children from Sandy Hook.  I didn't give the students any details but I told them that children from a school in Connecticut need some cheering up and are going to be going to a new school.  I shared with them that children from all over the country are making snowflakes to be hung in their new school.  The children will be completely surprised by their "Winter Wonderland". 

In the corner of each snowflake, the students wrote "Ohio" so the children know that the children in Ohio are thinking of them!

Have a wonderful new year!  

Mrs. Julie Atkin

Jan Brett author study

The last few weeks we have been learning all about the author Jan Brett.  The first couple of weeks we focused simply on reading books written and illustrated by Jan Brett.  We studied her illustrations and the things that happen to show up in almost every if not ALL of her books.  We have also noticed that Jan Brett likes to take typical stories and give them a little twist.  The students have learned that Jan Brett likes to travel all around the world to research for her books.  

For example; The 3 Little Dassies is a book Jan Brett wrote after she traveled to Namibia, Africa.  This book takes the same pattern and style of the story of "The Three Little Pigs".  Take a look at Jan Brett's website where she shares all about her adventures in Namibia, Africa. 

http://www.janbrettvideos.com/3_dassies_research_low_bandwidth.htm

 In the story "Honey...Honey...Lion!" again, Jan Brett traveled to Africa which inspired her to write about more African animals.  This story is about a honey guide bird and a honey badger work together to find honey.  The honey badger didn't give the honey guide her share of honey so she decides to get back at him. 
If you watch the following video, you can see Jan and her adventures finding the animals in her "Honey...Honey...LION!" book. 

http://youtu.be/NUc5-N4DQwI

 The Mitten (a Ukrainian folktale retold by Jan Brett)  and The Umbrella both written and illustrated by Jan Brett are about an object (Mitten or Umbrella) that animals find and climb inside.  The animals in The Mitten included forest animals and the animals in The Umbrella include rain forest animals from Costa Rica. 

The students loved these two books.  Together we created a Venn Diagram.  The Mitten was in one circle and The Umbrella was in another.  In the circles we jotted down what made the books alike and what made them different.  Next week, the students will be completing their own Venn Diagrams.  I will be sure to share some photos with you!

The Three Snow Bears was one of the students favorite Jan Brett books that we have read so far.  The Three Snow Bears takes the pattern and style of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  It's about a little girl that lives in Northern Canada.  Her sled dog team gets stuck on a broken piece of ice and starts to drift away.  On her search she runs into an igloo that just happened to belong to three polar bears.  You should get the idea of what happens next.  The children love the way Jan Brett can take a story and make it her own.  They also were very interested in how she illustrates her illustrations.  I came across a video where Jan shares how she illustrates Baby Bear.  We decided to try it with her.  Here are some photos of the students illustration process.  

The students would watch the video of Jan.  When she would tell and show us the first step we pressed pause and tried it ourselves.  In the mean time, Jan is helping us know how important it is to add details to our illustrations to make them look more realistic. 

 

 

As you can see the students did a beautiful job following Jan's directions.  They are displayed in our hallway on our bulletin board.

We have also been working on a biography.  

We haven't finished it and we will this coming week.  Check it out!  

Zachary writing the title for our Jan Brett biography.  

 A short list of facts we have found out about Jan Brett for our biography.

Here are a few more titles we have read in the last few weeks.  We will be reading much more this week including a couple Gingerbread books.  I hope you can make it to the West Carrollton Library to check out a few of her books.  Your whole family will love them!   

 

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  

Take care and I look forward to sharing more about Jan Brett next week.

Mrs. Julie Atkin