Thanks for visiting us, Chris Haughton!

Lucky Us! 

Chris Haughton came visiting on Tuesday. 

He was in the U.S. to accept his Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award for the book Shh! We Have a Plan. 

The students LOVE all three of his books, as evidenced by the amount of fan art that keeps popping up! 

You can see other book-related lessons here and here. During the visit, Chris read his books, talked about the book-creating process, got the students dancing, and answered questions. It was a fun and full visit!

While sharing Oh No, George, Chris brought his George puppet, which got into a bit of mischief gobbling cake and dumping trash. No worries though, they were just paper!

The lights in our Centre don't have a dimmer, so to see the screen, we turned them all off. It made the reading quite dramatic. Chris did a fantastic job of acting out the stories.

There was time for questions, but as with all author/illustrator visits, never enough time. 

The first grade students thanked Chris and wrote down additional questions:

It was a fab visit!

Come back soon, Chris!

We're ready for a visit from Chris Haughton tomorrow!

The books have been read! 

The students have reflected! 

The discussions have happened! 

The questions have been shared! 

We are ready to meet Chris Haughton.

There will be plenty of time to ask questions that arise during the visit, but I like to get the students thinking before hand. Here are some of the questions they recorded today:

AND...a little more fan art:

"I will take care of an owl."

Little Owl Lost

The first graders and I read Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton today. We are exploring all of Chris's books prior to his visit. The students loved this book just as much as Shh! We have a Plan. Really though, what is NOT to love about an adorable owl, who is lost, but for whom a well-intentioned squirrel comes along to help, and for whom a frog happens to know the location of his mother. Did that make sense? Have a look:

The first graders shared their thoughts, insights, and ideas via Voicethread. They described their own mothers. They made predictions.  Knowing that the little owl was probably going to fall back out of the nest, they brainstormed other mother owl features and which animals that squirrel might lead the little owl to next.  The comments begin on the second slide.

AND they created their own owl-inspired art: 

A few words about this book

The endpapers in this book are just as beautiful as in Shh! We Have a Plan.  I would love them as wallpaper or maybe a vinyl. 

The foreshadowing is wonderful for young readers.

I love the "Oh, no!" groan that occurred for each of the four classes when they noticed the little owl leaning a bit to far to the right at the edge of the nest.

The illustrations allow for *aha!* moments for close readers.

When talking about how illustrators use body language to demonstrate emotions, we had a fun time with this one:

We guessed what the little owl and frog might be thinking when the mother owl invites the squirrel and frog up to the nest for cookies.

This was much fun.

Shh! We Have a Plan (for this author/illustrator visit)

Chris Haughton is visiting with our kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students next week!  Chris is the author/illustrator of:

Chris is the Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award Winner and a CYBILS Award winner (along with other many well-deserved accolades) for the book, Shh! We Have a Plan.

We read Shh! We Have a Plan this week.  We started off by watching the book trailer.

https://vimeo.com/88145367

The trailer was successful: enthusiastic thumbs up indicated the students' desire to read the book. The students shared their ideas and predictions about the book.
"It's about trying to catch a bird."
"The bird gets away."
"I think it is going to be funny."

While reading the book, we stopped along the way to talk about what each of the plans entailed. The students loved the book and groaned at all the appropriate places.  After reading the book, the kindergarten students drew their own Shh! - inspired birds.

The second grade students had an opportunity to fill in a thought bubble sharing what they thought the little guy was thinking as his compatriots switched the focus to a squirrel.

Students are careful readers of both words and pictures. My students:

~~noticed that Chris foreshadowed the bird and squirrel in silhouettes in the first pages of the book.

~~noticed the arc of light that further focused the eye's attention on the action.


After reading the book, the students and I explored Chris' blog post about the making of Shh! We Have a Plan.  I paraphrased the text and we explored the images of the work in progress.

The students are looking forward to meeting Chris, hearing about creating books, and asking questions like these: 

"Why did the story take place a night?"

"Why didn't they let the little guy stay with the birds?"

"Are they people or animals?"

"Where are they?"

"How do you use so few colors?"

"Why did they keep saying, "go?" They scared the bird!"