Lee Wardlaw’s
Suggested Author Visit Activities

1. Create a welcome banner or mural.  Illustrate scenes from the author's books or use other reading themes.

2. If the author is staying for lunch, have younger children make placemats using rectangles of construction paper.  Illustrate scenes from the author's books or use reading themes then cover the placemats with contact paper.

3. Decorate classroom calendars with characters or scenes from the author’s books. Divide the calendar into thirds:  The top has a drawing connected to the story; the middle features a written explanation; the bottom contains the month with numbering.

4. Make posters or maps using ideas or the setting from the author’s books to decorate the classroom, library or school hallways.

5. Make dioramas with an attached synopsis of the story or scene depicted.

6. Write or perform interviews between a main character and a newsperson.

7.Write a book review for the school newspaper.

8.Write a book review for the school newspaper.

9. Interview the author and write an article for the school newspaper or newsletter.

10. Write autobiographies from the viewpoint of the main characters.

11. Illustrate a time line of the story's plot.

12. Make a mobile of a book's plot outline.

13. Write a poem using the name of a favorite character from the author’s book as the beginning letter of each line.

14. Record an oral history from the viewpoint of one of the characters.

15. Write entries in the main character's diary or journal.

16. Write a play or create a reader's theatre presentation from the book. Present the program to other students or parents.

17. Design a new book cover.

18. Write a sequel or the first chapter of a sequel.

19. Create alphabet books.  Example:  A is for the Ashes, all that was left of Corey's house after the fire.  B is for Black, the color of the burnt hills.  C is for Corey, the main character in the book.  D is for Depressed, how Corey felt when her cat died, etc.

20. Make papier mache figures featuring characters from the book.

21. Write a eulogy for a favorite character and deliver it to the class.

22. Research the visiting author in Something About the Author or other biographical sources.  Think of questions about her professional and personal life that you’d like her to answer.

23. Create an activity that carries the book into another subject of study.  For example, use We All Scream for Ice Creamin a science lesson by making five-minute ice cream or mummify a chicken (using the recipe in 101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher) for an Egyptian history unit project.