Presentations & Workshops for Students
What's My Job? I'm A Children's Author!
Presentations for Students K-8
"What's it like to be an author?" is a frequent question students have. Your students will find out when Judy visits your school! Using a cowboy rap, a ballad about butterflies, some hidden creatures, a game played by Roman soldiers and much, much more, Judy will share the behind-the-scene stories of how ideas change to words, and words turn into books. As the wife of one of her illustrators, students will also get a glimpse of the illustration process.
When Judy visits your school, she comes for a full day, usually seeing students by grade level, with up to six presentation sessions. Sessions are 60 minutes long for grades 2-8 and 30-minutes for K-1. For Middle Schools, presentations are often scheduled during English, reading, writing or library class periods.
This program is excellent for schools, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.
R is For Rhyme
Presentations for Students Grades K-8
From ballads about butterflies, jingles about jellybeans or quatrains about quilts, your students will discover the magic of poetry as author Judy Young presents her book R is for Rhyme, A Poetry Alphabet which received the Mom's Choice Award Gold Recipient: Educators' Choice, a starred Kirkus Review, a National Parenting Publications Honor Award and the Missouri Writers' Guild Best Juvenile Book Award. As Judy reads her poems and shares the stories behind them, students actively enter into the poetry writing process, becoming "poetry detectives" as they search for poetic tools, terms and techniques such as rhythm and rhyme, metaphor and alliteration, and specific poetic structures. Students then get the opportunity to become poets, as Judy leads them through group poetry writing activities.
When Judy visits your school, she comes for a full day, usually seeing students by grade level, with up to six presentation sessions. Sessions are 60 minutes long for grades 2-8 and 30-minutes for K-1.
This program is excellent for schools, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.
Show Me Missouri
Presentations for Students K-6
Your students will go on an adventure through Missouri with author Judy
Young as she presents her books, S is for Show Me, A Missouri Alphabet
and Show Me the Numbers, A Missouri Number Book. Students will actively
participate by choosing "artifacts" which relate to the books'
poetry and expository text about the history, geography, people, events,
wildlife and resources of Missouri. In addition to her enthusiasm in exploring
the gateway to the west, Judy shares the "behind-the-scenes"
stories about the writing and publishing processes, including the rare
opportunity to see some of the original artwork.
When Judy visits your school, she comes for a full day, usually seeing students by grade level, with up to six presentation sessions. Sessions are 60 minutes long for grades 2-8 and 30-minutes for K-1.
This program is excellent for schools, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.
The Hidden Bestiary
Presentation for Students Grades K-6
"Basil B. Barnswhitten," (a.k.a author Judy Young) will visit your school, showing students around the world as they discover marvelous, mysterious and maybe even magical creatures hidden in the illustrations and determine whether the creatures are endangered, extinct or never existed! Students will also discover the unique "reversed" writing process of this book, in which Judy wrote to 
illustrations that were created first! Then, in a group writing activity, students will try their hand at writing to illustrations!
When Judy visits your school, she comes for a full day, usually seeing students by grade level, with up to six presentation sessions. Sessions are 60 minutes each for grades 2-6 and 30 minutes for K-1.
This program is excellent for schools, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.
Fun with Facts in Fiction
Presentations for Students Grades 3-8
Just because it's "make believe" doesn't mean it's all made up! As Judy reads from her award-winning historical fiction picture book, The Lucky Star, students will actively participate in discovering the process of writing fiction, what goes in the beginning, middle and end of a story, as well as how to use research to make fiction seem true. (Judy will gladly provide an age appropriate program to include grades K-2 during her visit to your school.)
When Judy visits your school, she comes for a full day, usually seeing students by grade level, with up to six presentation sessions. Sessions are 60 minutes long for grades 3-8. (If you would like to include K-2nd graders in Judy's visit, she will gladly talk to them about being an author and reading from her books in 30-minute sessions.)
This program is excellent for schools, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.
Playday with an Author
For grades K-4
Is your school planning a playday, party or special celebration? Make these special activities not only fun but educational as well by inviting Judy Young, author of Lazy Days of Summer. Judy shares poems and unique historical facts about a variety of traditional games described in her book, as well as the writing process of both poetry and nonfiction. Then, the student's have the opportunity to do what kids love: PLAY! as they try out some of the games from the book.
Playday sessions are schedule for groups of up to 60 students, with up to five sessions per day. Each session consists of a 30-minute author presentation followed by a 30-minute playtime with several game stations. Playdays require the use of the school gym or all-purpose room.
This program is excellent for schools, summer school, camps, and libraries.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a playday, just
Contact Judy Young.
Poetry: Write Away!
A Classroom Writing Workshop Residency
For Students Grades 2-8
Poetry is often the first type of literature heard by children and young children are eager to learn to write poetry. Likewise, older students are learning to use the unique voice of poetry to express themselves. As your school's writer-in-residence, Judy Young comes into the classrooms to work directly with the students on their own poetry writing. Students explore a variety of poetic tools, techniques and terminology used in poetry such as metaphor, simile, and alliteration as they learn to write a variety of poetic structures. A different poetry writing assignment is given in each classroom. Teachers can then share their class' lessons with their peers, turning the writing workshop into an observational writing workshop inservice for educators as well.
Writing Workshop Residencies can be booked for 1-5 consecutive days.* Because there is an infinite number of ways a writing workshop can be planned, Judy is very flexible, and will work with your school to meet its specific needs. The following will help you determine how many days your school will need to schedule:
- Up to five 60-minute sessions may be scheduled per day.
- For elementary schools, a 60-minute large group assembly style introductory session for all participating classes is required prior to the first classroom writing session. Depending on the number of students participating, more than one introductory session may be necessary. Often, an introductory session is scheduled for each grade level.
- The introductory session is not required at middle or junior high schools.
- What grade levels do you want to target? You may want to target only one grade level, several grade levels, or all grades (no K-1 sessions offered).
- How many classroom writing sessions do you want your students to have? A classroom may have as many as five writing sessions for an intensive program, or may have only one. Obviously, the more sessions scheduled per class, the more the students will benefit.
*Schools within 50 miles of Springfield, MO, may schedule a full day of classroom writing workshops once a week for several consecutive weeks or on a monthly basis.
This program can be modified for young author conferences, libraries, writing clubs, and educational summer programs.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a workshop, just
Contact Judy Young.
Parent Nights and Special Events: Meet Author Judy Young
Presentation For Mixed Audiences of Students and Adults
Often schools want a special speaker at their parent nights, reading fairs, literature festivals or other special events. In an informal presentation style designed for a mixed audience of both children and adults, the audience will be taken "behind the scenes" to discover the working life of an author. As Judy reads from her books, she shares the publication process, starting with where ideas come from to rough drafts, final manuscripts and galley proofs. She also discusses the illustration process from the author's perspective. To help increase participation at your school's parent night, ask Judy about a student poetry writing contest to be held in conjunction with this event.
This program is excellent for school parent nights, libraries, young author events and children's literature festivals.
It's easy to get more information or to schedule
a presentation, just
Contact Judy Young.