Studying Pictures

Writing workshop has been running happily each day with kids loving time to write their ideas. Katie W Ray inspired me to try studying pictures in these beginning weeks of school after reading her book, In Pictures and In Words. I know the noticing students are participating in will only help them throughout the year as we investigate and read more books by great authors and illustrators. These first few weeks, I used much of what I noticed kids needing and wondering about to decide which picture books to study in workshop. The books that made the list are :

Bob Graham's

How To Heal A Broken Wing and "Let's Get a Pup" Said Kate (two of my personal favorites) in which we noticed Bob's use of boxes to tell more of the story with pictures and his use of color to show feelings and distinguish from day and night.

Jan Johnson's

Wrapped in Love (I posted about here) We used to notice how illustrators can show more of what is happening in the picture by showing two places

by using a window (out and in). The kids also thought it was important because it allowed her to match the pictures to the words better.

Mo Willems

Many Elephant and Piggy Books, specifically, Are You Ready To Play Outside

We really noticed movement techniques, like the way Mo makes Piggy's legs bend and the movement lines he puts next to her. The kids also picked up on the notion of word bubbles and many are having fun trying their own.

Chris Haughton's

Little Owl Lost

Kids were also intrigued by how Chris used dots to show the movement of the owl falling from

the tree.

Beth Cadena's

Supersister

In this story, kids made connections to Bob Graham's work because of the way Beth also shows us more of the story through pictures. They also noticed how Beth shows each step of movement when sister runs down the steps.

And, because my kids have all gravitated to the Melanie Watt basket:

Scaredy Squirrel

This book was great because I had introduced the idea of drawing and

writing lists the week before I read it aloud. Afterwards, we noticed that Melanie Watt pops lists into the middle of her stories.

All such fun with so many kids catching on to the notion of noticing. Here is one kiddo's picture using a movement idea like Beth Cadena used in Supersister. In this picture, one student shows himself diving off the board at the pool: you can experience each movement of his jump to the water!