Author Study of Steve Jenkins

Before any more time passes and this author study escapes my mind, I wanted to let you know how much my 3rd and 4th graders liked studying Steve Jenkins.  I really wanted to encourage nonfiction reading and one of the best authors currently writing is Steve Jenkins.  Simply put, he is pure awesomeness for science related nonfiction.  I'm going to explain more about Jenkins and his writing style by letting you know what I learned along with my students (and subsequently charted):

• Gets most of his ideas for his books from his own children asking questions.
• Uses cut-paper collage as illustrations.
• Topics mainly focus on science.
• Worked on a book with his father.
• Works with his wife on books.
• Writes introductions to begin all of his books.

Jenkins books are at many different reading levels from grades K-5--several of his books contain two levels of writing.  

I wanted to find a unique way to present information about Jenkins, so I searched for a Prezi on Steve Jenkins and found this one:

My students aren't constantly exposed to the format of Prezis, so it catches their attention in that way.

I had my students select a Jenkins book and answer questions about the book.  The questions asked were about the main topic of the book, their favorite illustration and what it was, three amazing facts they learned, etc.  The focus for individual students was just on one book and then they presented their information to the class, so we could collect information on multiple books.  My students really pined for Bones, Actual Size, Move!, What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, and Biggest, Strongest, Fastest.


Prezi courtesy of Lisa Klingesmith: photo credit Nasa / Goddard Space Flight Center / Reto Stöckli Author Study/prezi.com

Author Study of Peter Brown

I happened to luck out and land the author, Peter Brown, for my Preschool-2nd graders.  What a great chance to start one of my pet projects for this school year--multi-grade author studies.  Why not start with Peter Brown?!  Armed with the books You Will Be My Friend! and the Bookflix versions of Children Make Terrible Pets and The Curious Garden I began.  Using some Pinterst inspiration, I created a folder featuring a mini-bio on Brown, pictures of his books, and a section for students to fill in similarities between his books.

My lesson geared toward kindergarten involved them hearing a very brief bio of Peter Brown and then over a 3 week period, I read aloud You Will Be My Friend!, Children Make Terrible Pets, and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild!  I posted the story map elements I wanted them to answer: title, author, characters, and what the characters looked like.  Because the studnets LOVED learning about Peter Brown, I can now refer back to this study to remind them about authors and characters.

First grade had a similar study, but I added setting, problem and solution to their story map.  One of my 1st graders is never satisfied with her checkout choices, so now she constantly asks me for a Peter Brown book (and who am I to deny a student who asks for a book by the author).

In second grade we only covered one book in class, which was The Curious Garden.  For their story map, I added in theme.  With my help, I guided the students to think about the theme of the book.  The main focus was on big words they learned from Brown's books. We started with gathering words from The Curious Garden, which we figured out the words by using context clues.  Then they continued the search in other Peter Brown books and wrote down words they discovered on chart paper.

Overall, this was a good experience just getting into author studies.  I've already made tweaks to make the next better.

All Peter Brown books can be pruchased through his website via IndieBound.