Becoming Children's Book Authors and Illustrators

Fifth grade students have been busy research and analyzing children's illustrated books over the last several week.  As the books have been read, they have looked for messages in the illustrations that further the story and also studied the different ways the manuscript is paced through emphasis and punctuation to assist in the delivery of the story.  After choosing a subject for their own story, they have broken into cooperative groups to begin writing manuscripts and developing characters.  The next few weeks will  involve practice, practice, practice to create characters who can demonstrate emotions and illustrations that enhance the story line.  The goal is to create an illustrated book with the target audience of PK - 2nd grade and complete it prior to holiday break in late December.

Here are a few students in breakout groups developing ideas and drawings as they progress with their work. This is a strong cooperative endeavor.  Students are demonstrating mature choices and sensitivity to one another's personal preferences.  I am enthusiastic for the end products!

Cooperative Mural Work

I wanted to share a photo of the cooperative murals created by 1st graders from one of my schools.  In this building the students brainstormed ideas for a mural theme and then voted on the top four themes for the class to complete.  Once the themes had been chosen, they divided themselves into groups by interest to complete the murals.  It is always interesting to experience the processes that follow, discovering who will be bossy or learn to take on leadership diplomatically, who will always defer decisions, and who will discover their voice in the process.  I was very proud of the groups this year, they truly created very cooperatively with minimal conflict and indecision.   Their murals are extremely endearing.

Mural themes from top left: Castle and Space
Bottom left:  Landscape and camping

Jungle Mural by 1st graders
above and
Carnival mural by 1st graders to the right

Wacky Bird Mural - A study in Cooperative Art Making

This image was the inspiration for a 1st grade cooperative project this past week.  I generally have first grade students work in cooperative groups at this time of the year and have approached the lesson in a number of different ways over the years.   I think this one ranks high on the success factor.  I begin the lesson by reading the book "The Crayon Box that Talked" by Shane Derolf.


Stress is given to the importance of cooperation and the success that is achieve through kind words and support for others.  Students then work together to create a mural on a common subject.  This year the subject in one of my buildings was birds in a tree.   I used this fun handout from Expressive Monkey to assist students in creating their own wacky bird.   They colored with markers, cut them out as skillfully as possible to remove all white borders and glued them on the tree in their place of choice.

1st grade Wacky Birds Mural