Nina Laden came to school!

What an exciting day we had with author and illustrator, Nina Laden, who came to campus yesterday to do a K-4 assembly as well as art and writing workshops with Kindergarten, 3rd and 4th grades! Her books have been published around the world (Roberto was even made into a short animated film) and they have been tremendously popular with many of our students thanks to their lively artwork and clever use of language.

In the assembly, Nina described her childhood as the daughter of two artists, as well as her early art career before she began to make a living as an author and illustrator of children's books. She also talked about her latest projects, including a beautiful picture book due out later this year, and a middle grade chapter book (hopefully soon to be published).

The workshops were great fun and also inspirational as students learned Nina's 4 R's of writing as well as having the opportunity to create their own dog characters. Some enthusiastic students were inspired to immediately start writing stories about their dogs. Take a look at these happy 4th graders and their adorable dogs!

 

Kindergartners may be small, but they created some pretty amazing art. I wish I had room to share everyone's work, but here are just a few. We have a smartly dressed gentleman dog with glasses...

This one has so much personality, he looks ready to leap off the page! 

This classy poodle is named Layla!

And here is a most dignified Labrador Retriever. To me he looks like a character from an Austen novel!