Our Author Spotlight: Celebrating Nick Bland
One of my favourite little corners of our classroom is our new Author Spotlight bulletin board!
Our current featured author is Nick Bland, whose books are always a favourite with my Year 1 students. His stories are funny, engaging and filled with memorable characters—and they are perfect for reading aloud. The children especially love joining in and looking at all the details in the illustrations.
The bulletin board is so easy to make! I simply print a selection of books written by the featured author, as well as a photo of the author, and staple them to the board – no laminating! I then pull out all the books we have by the author and put in a book rack – the rack is very soon empty as they are eagerly snatched up and added to indiviudal book tubs!
Our Author Spotlight has also created lots of opportunities for classroom learning. We have used the books to explore:
- characters and character traits
- story settings and important events
- predictions and personal responses
- similarities between books by the same author
- interesting vocabulary
Most importantly, it has helped build excitement around reading. The children love visiting the display, talking about the books and choosing a featured author story during independent reading time.
It is such a simple addition to our classroom, but it has quickly become a part of the room that the children genuinely love. I’m looking forward to featuring more wonderful children’s authors throughout the year—but Nick Bland has been the perfect author to begin with!
I’ve already planned Stephen Michael King, David Shannon, Jeannie Baker, Eric Carl, Mem Fox, Jackie French, Julia Donaldson, Margaret Wild, Colin Thompson, Kevin Henkes and Dr Seuss.
Who else would you suggest?
6 Responses
Umm… How did I not know Nick Bland was an Aussie! I love Alison Lester, and my Preppies do too! 🙂
Lauren
Love, Laughter and Learning in Prep!
I LOVE Nick Bland. The Bear series is hilarious (and the eBooks for the iPad are soooo funny, too – we always ‘watch/listen’ to them after reading the book).
What about Pamela Allen? Or Graeme Base?
Stef
Miss Galvin Learns
Hi Kylie
I just love this clip about “The Very Cranky Bear” – cracks me up every time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGMY90P9-7Y
What about Craig Smith? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDeQT9zCvi4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khblgewzCYg
Kylie
Ripper Reading Resources
http://ripperresources.blogspot.com.au/
I will definitely add Alison Lester to my list, thanks Lauren!
Thanks Stef, both Pamela and Graeme would be great authors to highlight to the kids. Can’t believe I didn’t think of them!
Hi Kylie, haha, I hadn’t seen that cranky bear clip before! I love both of those books by Craig Smith so I might add him to my list as well, thanks!