Maureen Bush

One School, One Book

Wednesday I spent the day at Park Meadows School, in Lethbridge. The entire school (K – 5) is reading Feather Brain, as a One School, One Book project. Each class is doing special activities – novel studies, spelling lists, visits to the dinosaur exhibit at the Galt Museum, dinosaur songs.

I wondered if the youngest kids would have trouble sitting through it, without any pictures, but I asked a grade 1 class and they said they loved it. I heard that a grade 1 teacher was using Feather Brain as a bribe: “If you’re really quiet, I’ll read another page.”

It turns out I use great verbs – who knew? The teachers are using them to teach vocabulary, and the kids are having fun slouching, strutting and stomping around their classrooms.

I did sessions with all the kids, so I was exhausted by the end of the day, but we had a lot of fun.

In one session, we turned the teachers into androids training the kids to work for them, trying to take over the world, one computer network at a time. This gave a whole new meaning to their school motto, “Many Hearts, Many Minds, One Purpose.”

In another session, part of the group descended into the earth and discovered a raptor race track. One teacher was eaten by a raptor and barfed up again – we decided we’d let her live after inflicting that on her.

One class wrote a song. Yes, Feather Brain now has a song! How cool is that? I’ve asked for a recording of it – I’d love to post it as a podcast.

Now I can’t wait for my next visit to Lethbridge in February, to a second school using Feather Brain for One School, One Book.

For now, back to writing.

Maureen

Writing?

I just realized my blog hasn’t been much about writing lately. That’s because – well, because I haven’t been writing much. I’ve been derailed by travel, pre-Christmas chaos, Christmas chaos, bad weather (all through everything else), and a post-Christmas cold that I could putz through but not write anything new. The kitchen is cleaner than it’s been in years, my desk is excavated, Crow Boy is edited, and I’ve been working through administrative stuff. The best of that is planning two trips to Lethbridge to visit schools using Feather Brain for a One School, One Book program, where all the kids in the school read the same book, as a way to build community and foster excitement about reading.

http://www.readtothem.org/program.php

Somehow, Feather Brain has a big fan base in Lethbridge. I find that quirky and wonderful.

The cold is gone, both in my head and outside. The forecast is for above freezing all week. And I’m hoping this week will be a great writing week.

Maureen