Cool Schools

Last week I visited the St. Albans School for boys in Washington, DC for a "Parents and Sons" event. After a potluck supper I shared my digital slide presentation.

Both the students and their parents had perceptive questions afterward about dinosaurs and about the process of writing and illustrating. I signed a lot of books, sketching pictures of Tyrannosaurs playing soccer, hockey, and even hang gliding.

On November 2, I'll spend a day at the Carl Traeger Elementary School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since the beginning of the school year, students there have been developing their own fantasy worlds based on their direct observation of nature.

The students have carried their sketchbooks into the tall grass of the prairie outside the classroom to sketch bugs and flowers, and in class they've drawn pictures of stuffed animals, shells, and skeletons. They'll create their own fantasy characters and their own utopia, which might be called "Pigtopia" or "Dogtopia."

This method of sewing together science and art with the golden thread of fantasy was developed by teachers Teresa Moucha and Alice Toepel, who wrote the grant and developed the curriculum.