Young Author's Conference

This past Friday was the 3rd Annual Young Author's Conference at the school where I teach. For those who may not know exactly what a Young Author's Conference is- it's when students create their own book and then share it with their family, friends, and community! At our school, each student is responsible for making their own book. This year, students wrote nonfiction books of various informational topics. My class researched and wrote books on systems within the Human Body.

Teachers are not expected to decorate their classrooms for this event. However, it's not an option for me-decorating for a big day, such as The Young Author's conference, is viewed as mandatory in my mind. I absolutely love it and get so into it. I was in my classroom until 8:00 Thursday night decorating my classroom and getting it ready for Friday.

Last year I went with a Hollywood theme and my students were "Star Authors" and I loved that theme! I almost went with the same theme this year, especially considering I could re-use and not have to put a lot of money into it- but since all the students were writing books on the Human Body this year, I thought I would go with a "museum" theme. It ended up turning out pretty neat, I think.

This is the bulletin in the hallway right outside of my classroom. It was to be like the "welcome sign" outside of a museum. On the bottom right corner, it says "Hours of Operation, M-F 8-3:30. CLOSED SUMMERS" (I love that summer is 2 weeks away!!)

This was on the center of the floor and was created by two of my students. I was SO impressed with how it turned out. They designed it all on their own and it truly is better than I could ever do.

This idea was taken from Pinterest. I modified some things based on what I could/couldn't find at the store in the short amount of time I had to get it all ready, but I'm still really happy with the way it turned out. I wanted to tie the candy in with certain components of my students' research and it all came together really well!

I used Twizzler Bites as "heart valves" and Twizzler pull 'n' peels as "muscle fibers."

Blue Jello- like they give you in the hospital I guess?

Tropical flavored Mike 'n' Ike's as "medication"

Marshmallows as "cotton balls" and cheerios in water with red food coloring as "red blood cells"

Students had over 200 books from which to do their research

A few of my students wanted to decorate the board, so I let them :)

I sat my students in groups according to the system they researched and wrote a book on; this is the Circulatory System

At each section of body systems, I tried to think of something hands-on for students to share with guests (also an opportunity to share their expertise and link it to what they have learned). At the nervous system, I put some spices in little cups and had the students share with the guests about the brain's role in smell, etc.

The Skeletal System section- one of the boys who studied this system is gifted and he knew every single part of the skeleton and had it memorized and didn't mind showing off to anyone who would listen :)

A sweet picture of two of my students listening to each other read

And this is just plain funny. Ok, so this is Micah. His mom is a teacher at our school. He works for a local news station. He's also really, really tall. Well, a few of my students had apparently asked him if he played football, and he told them he played in college. The students asked him if he played for the Gators, to which he told them he played against the Gators. Since my students have great selective hearing, all they heard was "play for the Gators" and took it and ran with it and made him out to be completely famous. Next thing you know- Micah is signing autograph after autograph and I'm just laughing. Then, students were asking me if they could touch the pen he wrote with and keep it. It was hilarious and ridiculous all at the same time- considering they made him out to be famous out of their own mis-interpretation of what he told them. Oh, kids. :)

Micah's real reason for being there was to have the students help him write an article about the Young Author's Conference day so that he could post it on the website of Bay News 9, the station he works for.

Overall, the Young Author's Conference day was a huge success. Our classroom saw lots of visitors that day and the students had fun. The process of getting the books written and such is no easy task- but the end product is always worth it!