Saturday, October 20, 2012

Nick Bruel's visit

After having to postpone his original visit to AFS, we were fortunate to meet Nick Bruel on Friday. Nick Bruel is the bestselling author and illustrator of the beloved Bad Kitty series. Nick introduced himself to us and explained how he knew early on that he wanted to be a writer. He shared his story of how “he loved nothing more than to write stories and make drawings to go along with them”. Using the SMART Board, Nick showed us some of his most popular books and read them too. In an extremely funny and very entertaining way, he read Bad Kitty, Poor Puppy and A Bad Kitty Christmas. He had us all laughing hysterically.  












After the read alouds, Nick discussed how he comes up with a story. He said that once he gets an idea, he then asks many questions. To demonstrate this strategy, Nick showed us cards with different words and invited us to share our ideas on what the story may be about for each of them. For example, one of the words was “Splash.”

“What do you think a story with this title is about?”

“Swimming”

“Who is swimming?”

“A dog and a lion”

“Where is the dog and lion swimming?”

“In the ocean”

“How did they get to the ocean?

“They ran to the ocean”

“Is the water warm or cold?”

“Warm”

“How long have they been swimming in the ocean?”

“2 minutes”

And Nick and the Kindergarteners went on and on. Please ask us how the story ends. We would love to share it with you. It’s a great way for us to practice retelling and summarizing a story as we identify the beginning, the middle and the end of the story.


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