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.
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.
If you watch the following video, you can see Jan and her adventures finding the animals in her "Honey...Honey...LION!" book.
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.
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
Do you happen to know where the Jan Brett video came from? Do you have a link?
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