I just received my itinerary for TD Book Week – I’ll have 14 presentations in the Lower Mainland area of British Columbia in 4.5 days. Yikes! They haven’t told me all my audience sizes/ages, yet, but in four of the visits I’ll be presenting to groups of 100+ students – ALL of them in grades K/1! I can’t believe one school has that many students of that age.
I’m looking for tips, so I won’t look like this…
I’ll create a PPT specifically for this age group, and I’ll scan Rainbows in the Dark so they can all see the illustrations, but I’d like to have some fun, crowd-control, type of things to pull out of my back pocket, if necessary. Any teachers or writers out there have any ideas they’d like to share? If only I could play guitar and sing, or maybe tap dance…
Jan L. Coates - "What if...?" 
I’ll follow the replies and comments here, because I would love to see what good tips flow in. Oh, My– FOURTEEN presentations. Make sure your energy level is top-notch. I found that, with my (limited) experience presenting to younger readers, the liveliness and energetic presence is key.
Yup. I have about 6 hours of flying to get there, so I plan to stay hydrated as flying often makes me lose my voice:( And I hope my energy is high, too! Somebody else suggested taking half-sheets of paper and a box of those tiny pencils so you can get them to draw something related to your book, so I might do that (or think of a participation song/chant, as Jackie suggested below.)
Just a suggestion – Do you know the song “If you’re wearing red today… please clap your hands” It goes on through all the colours and of course you can do different actions – wave hands, stamp feet. As you do the colours of the rainbow you could get three of four kids of each colour up with you and make a rainbow on stage. Don’t forget to include the greys and browns and blacks. Just an old library action song!! I am busy filling in my form. I still can’t find the final date to have it in by. I’ve e-mailed but had no reply.
Thanks, Jackie. I’ll keep that in my back pocket, and I’ll fill you on the details when I see you next. It seems they’re always changing the dates to apply for things, but I think I found out last August that I was on the Tour for 2015.
Have fun! That´s the best advice. The kids in BC will be lucky to have you there. I wish I was still living there, I would take you for a tea for a break.
Thanks, Darlene – sorry we’ll miss each other, but it looks like you had a nice trip back to BC. I’ve never been to the coast of BC before, so I’m looking forward to seeing the mountains and experiencing some early summer, as well as meeting lots of readerly/writerly types.