So excited I can barely write – that’s a good thing, right? Today I leave for Boston to teach my first week long Young Authors Workshop. As of last night we have seven third and fourth graders who want to spend their school vacation writing! Yes, eight and nine year olds who CHOOSE to spend their school vacation WRITING! That right there is enough to inspire me to keep plugging away with my iTeach project.
I spent years teaching writing to five year olds and saw some amazing talent in our youngest writers and my work with these children inspired me to create iTeach. Most writers I talk to never thought about young children participating in writing courses outside of school. Many courses are offered for middle and high school students on vacations and in the summer, but over and over I have heard parents complain that there is nothing offered for our youngest children. I created iTeach in response to this need and LOOK, seven young children want to “write away” their vacation.
We are going to have a great time this week. We will be learning “to live a writing kind of life” by establishing and keeping a writers notebook as close as a best friend. We are going to expand our author’s creative mind by doing very cool, out of the box activities, and perhaps the most fun day of all will be Illustration Day where we will meet children’s book illustrator Lynne Chapman via her website and become “our own kind of artist”.
Stay tuned daily, as I will be blogging from Writing Under the Moon in Boston and bring you the stunning talent of our youngest authors.
And so, as another day goes by, I get chills just thinking – what if even one child grows up to be a writer?, wow, and…I have written.
How lovely. It all sounds fantastic and I am thrilled to be your inspiration for the Illustration Day. Have fun!