Today was Kansas Day
! :o) We have been learning about our Kansas flag, our state name, our capital, and our state bird, reptile, amphibian, insect, tree, flower, and mammal.
Ask the kids to tell you about how we remember the name of our capital, Topeka. "And.......the Indian said, 'My toe-peek-a outa my shoe
!'"
We have also learned many other interesting facts about Kansas. Today we decorated the Principal's office with the "unofficial" Kansas bird - the Jayhawk. For you K-State fans (like our principal), I did explain to the kids that it was an "unofficial Kansas symbol." The term "jayhawk" was first used before the Civil War.
I do have his daughter in my class, so we thought it would be a funny joke to play on her daddy. With the help from the office staff, the whole wall ended up being decorated!
Happy Birthday Kansas!!
We talked about several examples. If the story has the little girl wearing a pink dress, the illustrator can not say, "Nope, I like red." ...... and color the dress red. If the author has the boys in the story playing football, the illustrator can not say, "Nope, I like basketball better." ..... and color them playing basketball. Otherwise, he might loose his job. "You mean like get fired Mrs. Rucker?" Yep! The author gets to tell the story, and the illustrator makes it visually come alive. 
One of the activities we do to practice this is play our "Be an Illustrator" game. I have the kids put up their desk dividers (so they can't see each others papers), and then I tell them to put on their Illustrator hats. They must listen to the sentence and illustrate what they hear. When everyone is finished coloring, we show our pictures. They love to see if their picture looks like the others at their table. The sentence I used in these pictures was, "The fat yellow cat sat on a blue mat." :)
