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Showing posts with label visual doodles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visual doodles. Show all posts

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Nikolas & Co: Achievement "Unlocked"!


    Kevin McGill, the writer of Nikolas & Co, wrote our class a letter after seeing your visual doodles about his book!

    To Mrs. Johnson's grade 7/8 students,

    • Your teacher, Mrs. Johnson, just showed me your pictures of Nikolas and Company and all I can say is, awesome! 

    • I am so impressed by your drawings and desire to read that I've decided to make it worth your while. 

    • There are so many things about Nikolas and Company that you don't know yet. 

    • Like the power of jynn'us - every person has a power hidden inside all of them, and when they breathe the air of Mon, it will be unlocked. 

    • Some have the power to call weapons out of thin air, others can destroy an entire airship with the blink of an eye. 

    • Then, there's all the various kinds of fantastic creatures: creachlings, elflings, fairlings, humlings, unlings, biglings, midglings, and plantlings. Each kind has their own set of creatures and monsters.

    • For example, under the plantling kind, there is a terrible monster that is part tree and part spider. (A hint: Don't be fooled by one of its juicy looking fruits.) 

    • Would you like to be the first to know more about the thousands of different creatures and inner-powers? Well, you will. 

    • For every week that you listen to and draw along with Nikolas and Company, I will unlock another Mon mystery on my website just for you. 

    • Simply visit http://nikolasandco.com/ and click on "Mon Mysteries."

    • Read on! 

    • Sincerely, 

    Kevin

    Thanks Kevin! I will be sure to let you know by the end of each week if we've got doodles! And if we do I will post them on my new page on this blog dedicated to the Visual Doodles! 


    What an exciting way to explore the creative universe of Nikolas & Company. We look forward to 'unlocking' this special content as we read and think our way through your book!



    Sunday, 9 October 2011

    Reading is Thinking: Visual Doodles

    Recently, we started reading Nikolas & Co, a YA fantasy adventure novel by Kevin McGill (who will be one of our guest speakers. He is a writing friend of mine via Twitter who lives in Dallas, Texas. He spoke last year at my J/I Boy's Literacy Event).

    As I read the story aloud, students are creating Visual Doodles to represent the images they see in their mind's eye ('Reading is Thinking'). They will also be writing about the story as well (focusing on summaries, opinions, connections and story features like character/setting/plot, figurative language, etc). Here are a few of the first doodles. These doodles document the events in the first chapter. They are in pencil and a bit hard to see but check them out! You should be able to make out: mountains, digging for the artifact, crazy project leader, a hover truck, gold dust shimmering in the air, etc.

    I will be sending this blog link to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, what do you think? Leave a comment below!