Author's Fair 2014

Well, they did it:

After many, many, MANY hours of work, the girls finished their "Book of Months" project. The final book is very sweet, with words & illustrations showing our life as a family over the course of a year. They finished it just in time--as in about 30 minutes before I needed to go help host our school's table at the annual Author's Fair!

This year the table was almost embarrassingly weighted towards our family's contributions.  For some reason there were far fewer families participating this year--and so Terry, my wonderful E.S. asked if they could have all our previous years' books, as well as the group projects I led for the Vintage Homeschool kids (most of the families attend our charter) to show, to ensure the table display was well filled.  It was a good thing we did, because the girls counted--and 11 out of 21 books on the table were from our family/my leadership!

 

 

 

A sweet book Sunny made this year for her sister Merry, for her birthday.  (The sticky-notes you see on various books are from nice comments people can choose to leave on the books for the young authors. : ) Below that, one of our older but favorite books, in which my and my dear Becky's girls created poetry in response to the trees at a local state park filled with majestic redwoods.

On top, the "Wild Cats of the World" book the girls made together a year or two ago, full of facts and drawings.  Under that, "The Life of Our Trash," another collaborative project from last year or the year before.

One of my favorite Vintage Homeschool kids projects--"What's Above and What's Beneath."

Another favorite Vintage Homeschool kids project--a book of sensory immersion guided poetry, with watercolor collage artwork.

 

In this picture: Seven Evans, the first chapter book Sunny wrote.  Then a very early book we made about a visit to a California Gold Rush town.  Then in the back the very first book we ever wrote--what we call the Preamble Book (in which Sunny interpreted the lines of the Preamble as they might look lived out in our house).  Then, on the right middle, the Vintage Homeschool kids book from last year, "What Is It? A Book of Nature Riddles."

I must admit, it was really fun to see the progression of the kids' writing and artwork displayed together, and be reminded of how much I love to lead the group book projects.  I'm already looking forward to next year's ideas!