As highlighted in the school district's webpage:
Sparked by training received as a result of winning a grant through the Professional School Library System at PNW BOCES, library media specialist Susan McCormack worked with the BV PTA enrichment coordinator Mrs. Andrea O’Malley to make this first virtual author visit a reality.
Throughout the month of May, students in kindergarten and first grade spent their library class listening to books by author Marsha Diane Arnold. They learned about her life as a child growing up on a farm in Kansas and about the redwood forest that inspires her in her current home in northern California. Students connected to the curriculum as they discussed life in rural communities as compared to urban and suburban ones. Through the use of satellite images, students got a sense of the space and isolation between the great farms of the Midwest Great Plains states compared to the homes spread throughout the communities of Buchanan, Verplanck and the lower Hudson Valley. Students began to make connections between how life experiences inform fiction writing. They learned about tornadoes and bravery while listening to Mrs. Arnold’s story: The Bravest of Us All. They heard how stories based on farm life and animals can be fictionalized and infused with humor in: Roar of and Snore and Prancing, Dancing Lily. Students prepared questions for the author ranging from how she gets ideas for her stories, to how she chooses an illustrator to more personal questions such as does she have any pets?
Using web cameras and Skype, students visited with author Marsha Diane Arnold via computer screen split in three: the author, themselves on camera and the author’s presentation. At the end of her presentation, the kindergarten students called out, “Goodbye, we will miss you!” as the author, Ms. Arnold, signed off. Thanks to the tremendous support of the BV PTA, we hope to make virtual author visits a regular annual occurrence.
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