School Visits

NOTE: Click here for information and fee structure for Virtual Visits! Please contact me with any questions.
I’m participating in World Read Aloud Day, February 1, 2023. If you’d like me to visit your classroom, please sign up here.

I love to speak with students about two of my favorite subjects: science and writing. Your students will learn how an author researches and writes nonfiction books. They will discover that they are all nonfiction writers, and that nonfiction rocks! My presentations reinforce and support your STEM and ELA curricula. While writing over 90 books and hundreds of poems, articles, and stories for magazines and educational publishers, I’ve researched a myriad of science topics. I’m happy to tailor a program to your classroom needs. Or you can choose one of the following programs:

Slithering Snakes! Nonfiction Stories About Animals

How does an author research a topic? Using examples from Buffy’s informational and narrative nonfiction stories, students brainstorm questions and discuss how to find answers. After learning about snakes through reading an informational text, we discuss how the same information can be structured in a story. Students act out a creative nonfiction story about garter snakes.

Is That a Fact? Researching Animal Secrets

Using examples from Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks? And Other Questions About Animals, students brainstorm animal questions and learn about research, writing, and revision. Different approaches to writing about the same topic are explored including a creative nonfiction story and poetry.

Put On Your Animal Mask! Writing Poems Through Animal Eyes

Imagine you are a praying mantis, waiting for dinner to arrive. How does the world look through mantis eyes? In this workshop students choose a favorite animal and write a mask poem–a slice of life from that animal’s point of view. They learn to collect strong descriptive words from other texts and to write sensory descriptions.

For details about scheduling a school visit, including my current rates, please click here, or contact me.

Here’s what teachers and librarians say about my presentation:

Read a blog post written by a teacher about my visit.

Here’s why a Media Specialist loves author visits, and her tips for planning a successful visit.