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In February, 2003, Ms. Todd, our Library Media Teacher, arranged for Ms. Young's 4th grade class to participate in a Virtual Author Visit with Toni Buzzeo. We were very excited to be able to do so! Another class in Virginia was going to join us at the same time. We would like to share some of our experiences from this visit.

Of course one of the first things we did was read her book,

It is an exciting legend, beautifully illustrated by Mary GrandPre, that takes place in a lighthouse in Maine. (We don't want to give the whole story away if you haven't read it yet.)

The Sea Chest.

Since we live on the West Coast, there are many lighthouses out here, too. Ms. Todd brought in a lot of books and stories about lighthouses which we read in class. Then we went to the Library Media Center for a special "pre-author visit" session.

Using our LCD projector, (which we had just received 24 hours prior, one of the benefits of the California State Libraries Act monies) we visited Toni Buzzeo's website. We read her biography, and then followed one of her many links in her curriculum support section, to learn more about lighthouses. Her website is located at

.http://www.tonibuzzeo.com

One of the things we read was about Lighthouse Keepers' Logs. So we made our own mini-logs fora week. Click if you want to see some examples of our logs.

lighthouse logs

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Before we came to the Library for the actual , Ms. Young had us think of good questions to ask of an author.

Virtual Author Visit

virtual author visit via Instant Messenger

Then we used Instant Messaging (via the Library Circulation computer and the LCD projector) to "converse" with Toni. Ms. Todd would type in one of our questions, then Toni would type in her answer. Another question, another answer, and so on, taking turns with the class in Virginia. At first Ms. Young read all of the dialogue, then after we got used to it different students took on the various voices. We learned how to use code words like "GA" (go ahead).

A few days after the visit, we came together to think about all that we had been learning. After discussing it as a group, we eachwrote our own . We then used parts of what each person had written individually to compose a whole class letter to Toni Buzzeo. Since we were word processing itutilizing the LCD screen, we decided to email it to her then and there!Our is viewable online.

reflections

email letter

To top it off, Toni even sent each and every one of us an autographed card. We can't wait to read her other books!

We hope you've enjoyed our virtual explanation of our virtual author visit.

If you have any questions, please contact us through our Library Media

Teacher, Ms. Todd.

P.S. We noticed that Clifford was enjoying reading the Sea Chest, too.

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This website was created by Becca Todd, LMT. Questions? Comments! Write

btodd@ousd.k12.ca.us

This page was last updated 3/

24/03

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