A Wonderful Author Visit at Sacramento Country Day School

I was invited for an author visit this past September by Sacramento Country Day School. Ashlie Kirby, a DEL award winner and dance educator for the school, had introduced my book I Can Make a Water Dance to the school. The first grade was so thrilled because they were studying the water cycle. You will see below the wonderful bulletin board they made in the office of the head of the lower school. The school was so gracious and helpful. Ashlie and the lower school librarian Melania Michel made me feel so welcomed! Thank you all!

Ashlie Kirby, Karen Diaz Ensanian, Melanie Michel

The river bulletin board in the office of the head of the lower school. I was touched to see my work inspire creativity shared with the whole school.

I started my visit with two assemblies where I read The Dancing Light (my second book). First, we do a little warm-up. During the reading we do little mini dances that coordinate with the pages we are reading.

Here I am reading the 'Plants' page, while the children create dance representing a plant growing from a seed.

Very often I play my drum and sing observations and directions when the children dance.

Here I'm in the music and dance room, and I'm about to teach a full dance class. I had decided to make the whole class plan revolve around one page 'Snow' from I Can Make a Water Dance.

I used a feather to illustrate how a snowflake might move. Then I had the children give me action words that they were observing during the feather's flight. Ashlie wrote them down so we can revisit their words. In this video you are seeing me refer to their list of words and having them explore for themselves how the words would work as dance movements.

After the children became familiar with exploring their list of words they chose two or three favorite ones and used them in their improvisation as we listened to recorded music.

Visiting another teacher gives me a chance to find out how they use the books, and I get to learn new ideas too! Here Ashlie has photo copied the dancers from the back of the book and cut them out to let the young dancers pick their movement out of a paper bag. They use the movement for their next movement exploration! Brilliant!

Here I am handing out personalized signed copies of the books to children whose parents pre-ordered them. A special website was created for easy ordering.