“Keeping Kids Kreative: The Miracle of Books”

Cullowhee Creativity Camp

Presenters: Linda Thoreson and Jonnie Walkingstick

·         Book projects and activities encourage creativity and choice among students

·         Books are Creative!

o   They provide creativity in “hand”

o   They set the mood for creativity

o   They inspire creativity

o   They are artistically creative

o   They promote creative writing

o   They serve as springboards for creativity

o   They act as building block of creativity

·         Book: The City of Ember  by Jeanne DuPrau. is part of a 4 book series about rebuilding a society that has a lot of math and science connections

·         Activity: Think Bubble Poster that shows thoughts students may have for the first few minutes of a new project or assignment on one side and then thoughts they have when they get over the initial fears on the other side (picture on FLIP video)

·         Activity: TIC-TAC-TOE with Literacy (have students independently read a book and then choose a tic-tac-toe off the sheet of various activities to complete . . . the activities involve multiple forms of intelligence)

·         Activity: Tall Tale Project Sheets . . . when teaching a reading skill, the book level doesn’t really matter . . . the student interest does

·         Books needed for the Gifted Classroom:

o   Weslandia, by Paul Fleishman  (good read aloud)

o   Archibald Frisby by Michael Chesworth (good read aloud)

o   Insects are My Life by Megan McDonald (good read aloud)

o   The Report Card by Andrew Clements (protest on testing since it makes kids feel dumb)

o   The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg (an almost wordless picture book, good for writing prompts, possible PBL project, quick motivation for story writing, create a class book)

o   Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac (good Native American Story written by a Native American Author . . . activity is to write a story in the style of this author . . . make a list of words to use similar to ones used by the author)

·         Activity: Biography Banners (silhouette of head filled with illustrations to represent themselves)

·         Activity: Biography Cubes (to use for a variety of projects . . . about me, autobiography, biographies, character exploration . . . )

The rest of the notes from this workshop are available on the following files: 

Keeping Kids Kreative.docx

Keeping+Kids+Kreative[1].doc