Pre-School Author Visit

This morning I had my first official school visit.  It was to a preschool that a friend's daughter attends.  I'd been emailing the director back and forth and I planned to do 1 - 2 presentations for the children.

I ended up doing 4.

But it was a good learning opportunity for me.  This was my basic presentation:

- present a list of terms and ask kids if they knew what they meant, i.e. ninja, stealthy

- read book and ask questions, i.e. How do you think Wink felt?  What do you think happens next?

- present dummy book and do a compare and contrast between old art and book art

- Q & A

This is what I learned:

- The kids did not know what most - if any - of the terms meant and calling on many kids got hectic and time consuming.  By the second presentation, I was only asking if anyone knew what a ninja was and just defining the rest of the terms in a quick, simple way.

- they did enjoy listening to the story and they were good about answering questions about emotions.  This age group couldn't really predict what might happen next.

- They LOVED the compare and contrast!!!

- Typical Q & A:

Me: Does anyone have any questions about the book.  Yes, Veronica?

Veronica: My mom made eggs this morning.

Me: That's great.  I made eggs for my son, too.  Anyone else have questions about the book.

Ally: Me!  Me!

Me: Ally, if you'll sit quietly with your hand up, I'll call on you.

Ally bursts into tears.

Ally:  But I was doing that.  (tears, tears)

Me:  OK Ally, what did you want to ask me?

Ally:  (Wipe) My brother is learning about Japan.

Me: That's great.  What grade is he in?

Ally: Fourth.

Josh:  My brother's in fourth grade too.

Colin:  So's mine.

And then they were gone....

Once a teacher asked me a technical question about getting published.  As I told her, the kids discovered a bug on the floor and tried to kill it.

All in all, things went really, really well.  I feel like I have a successful 30-minute preschool program.  And I know that 4 preschool presentation is about my mental limit.