For Teachers

How To Draw A Pencil

Learn to draw Wolf’s pencil from LITTLE RED AND THE BIG BAD EDITOR by following these 5 simple steps!

LITTLE RED AND THE BIG BAD EDITOR coloring sheets and comics!

Have fun coloring and creating your own dialogue for the comics with these printable pages…

Educator’s Guide for LITTLE RED AND THE BIG BAD EDITOR!!

Filed under: For Teachers,Free Stuff,Printable Activities | July 19, 2022

Thanks for using LITTLE RED AND THE BIG BAD EDITOR in your classroom. Rebecca Kraft Rector and I (Shanda McCloskey) hope you will find something useful inside these activities to enrich learning for your students. This GUIDE includes …

Reading & Writing Activities (with Printables!!)

1, 2, 3! Sequencing!

Similes, Cool as Cucumbers

Story Predictions

Write a Thank You Letter

Fractured Fairy Tales – Compare & Contrast

Finish the Twisted Tale of “Slipping Beauty”

Write Your Own Fractured Fairy Tale

The Critique Sandwich

Complete the Comic (your way)

Artful Activities (with Printables!)

How To Draw a Pencil

Draw a Delicious Writing Snack

Handwriting Practice

Cursive Handwriting Practice

Make a Map of Red’s Journey

Coloring Pages

Graphic Novels: A Brain Workout

I didn’t grow up reading comics. I am a new lover of the comic medium. When I found stories AND informational books in comic form, I fell in love.

But it wasn’t super easy to read at first. My brain was used to reading prose, so it took me a minute each time I opened a graphic novel to recalibrate to this form of reading. Kids seem to read comics so effortlessly, but my adult brain can tell you that there’s a lot going on up there when you read a graphic novel!

Have you (grown ups) tried one yet? I’m telling you – it’s a great brain workout!

And I’m not just making this stuff up…

“Traditional text is limited to presenting the same information sequentially. But when we read comics, we simultaneously interpret a multitude of visual information such as setting, mood, time, emotion, dialogue, and action.” (Read the full article here.)

My Favorite Informational Comics:

My Favorite Story Comics:

Grownups, I hope you’ll try a graphic a graphic novel THIS summer! If you do, you’ll appear much cooler (than you already are) to the kids in your life!

If you are already a reader of graphic novels, what’s YOUR favorite one to date? Comment below! I’d love to know.

Reading Poster and Matching Coloring Page

With schools starting back in-person all over, I wanted to share a “Read and Recharge” poster (with character’s from my first book, DOLL-E 1.0) that’s FREE for printing, laminating, and decorating your classroom! AND there’s a free matching coloring sheet so your students can also make their own poster!

Print Poster

Print Coloring Page

As always, I’d LOVE to see photos of your using these in your classroom :)

All My Best,

Shanda

Ho-To-Draw Snuggle Bunny from Bedtime Ballet

I told you I was excited about this upcoming book! Here is a How-To-Draw Snuggle Bunny (the lovey toy that the main character carries with her all through the story in the pictures)! Click the image below to download and print. Happy drawing!

Let’s make zines! (printables)

Filed under: A Picture Book & A Project,For Teachers,Free Stuff | July 25, 2020

Author-illustrators including myself, K-Fai Steel, Aram Kim, Mika Song, and Doug Salati teamed up with East Flagstaff Community Library and local schools in Flagstaff, Arizona to create a series of zines that align with some of our books! We call them QuaranZines because of when/why they were created. But now, they are available for everyone (even in Spanish)! So PRINT, FOLD, & have FUN!…

Example of Shanda McCloskey's ROBOT zine.

Doll-E 1.0 zines

T-Bone the Drone zines

Fire Truck vs. Dragon zines

A New Pig (by K-Fai Steele) zines

No Kimchi For Me (by Aram Kim) zines

Ho’onani: Hula Warrior (by Mika Song) zines

In A Small Kingdom (by Doug Salati) zines

TOYS: Video STEAM Lessons for PreK – 1st Graders

Filed under: Doll-E,For Teachers | July 2, 2020

I am very excited and thankful to now have permission to share a brilliant 4-part video lesson that starts with my book, Doll-E 1.0! This lesson was created by Elana Waugh, a STEAM teacher at Wilkshire Early Childhood Center, for the Red Cedar Writing Project and is geared to young students from PreK thru Kindergarten. I just LOVE the way Elana speaks to the young people! Her passion shines brightly through this. Enjoy, use, and give her some thumbs-ups on YouTube!

Lesson – TOYS

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPgAm5OM6XU

Part 2-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY41xeE-JDw

Part 3-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9eMf0CsG8U

Part 4-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGZsVobAX1M

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Shanda McCloskey, Children's Illustrator & Author