Happy Birthday Keith Baker - March 17

Happy Birthday Keith Baker - March 17

We are lucky to have a newly-renovated, state-of-the-art library within 30 minutes of our house. It is a beautiful facility and the children's section is A-MA-ZING (more on that in a bit)!  Additionally, a brand-new 11,000 square foot auditorium was added. It is the perfect venue for bringing children's authors and illustrators to our area. (Check out a video from WKYC news that highlights all the features of the Parma-Snow Branch.)

The Parma-Snow Branch Library of the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Public Library system reopened at the beginning of December 2013.  On January 15, 2014, our family had the opportunity to meet Keith Baker. He was brought to Ohio all the way from the state of Washington because his picture book, LMNO Peas was the inspiration for the newly renovated children's section of the library.

My children each read a copy of LMNO Peas while they waited for Keith Baker to begin his presentation.

Keith Baker told us about many of his books including Who is the Beast? (Which is his favorite book because "it sold the most.")  and The Magic Fan. We learned that Keith loves to hide things in his illustrations like ladybugs in LMNO Peas and caterpillars in Little Green. Also, we were lucky to get a sneak peek at the animated version of LMNO Peas from Weston Woods.

Keith Baker signed a book for our family and two books that we will be giving as gifts.  We love giving autographed books as birthday and holiday gifts.

We shared with Keith Baker the Pea-ple Shopping Bags that we made back in 2011 when we celebrated his birthday for the first time.

He liked them so much that he wanted a picture of the bags with my children. (How cool!)

After Keith Baker's event we had to check out the children's section.  The first thing you will notice when you walk into the area is this large sign hanging from the ceiling. This sign was based on the illustration on the last page of LMNO Peas.  LMNO Peas is an alphabet book that showcases peas working and playing from A-Z.  There are builder peas, farmer peas, and even juggler peas!

Once you get into the children's area you will immediately see these huge letters and upon closer inspection we found out that they are bookshelves!

I don't know if the O was intended to be a child reading spot, but my son did.

Notice my youngest son's head peeking out of the bottom of the P. This children's room is spectacular and a must see if you are in Northeast Ohio and love children's books.

During his presentation, Keith Baker showed everyone in the audience how to make a six-sided snowflake by folding and cutting a piece of paper. He urged us to share this quick and easy project with someone we knew so that it everyone would have the joy of making one.  As soon as he said this I knew who I wanted to share it with -- YOU!

This week, we had yet another snow day and the kids were home from school. The weather forecasters had been talking about this storm for about a week. I secretly hoped that it would actually happen and that school would be cancelled.  It knew it would create the perfect environment for the birthday celebration, and all of my children would be able to participate.

We read Keith Baker's book No Two Alike which celebrates the uniqueness of snowflakes, nests, tracks in the snow, leaves, YOU and ME, and more.  Baker states, "No two snowflakes are alike, almost, almost, but not quite." 

After reading the book in our kitchen (look out the window at the snow!) we set out to fold and cut six-sided snowflakes.  Below are step-by step directions so you can learn and then share with someone you know.

Start with a piece of white paper.

Fold it in half.  My daughter says, "At school, they tell us to fold it like a hot dog." I guess this means fold in long ways.

Fold it half, but don't crease the whole fold.  Just mark the center in the bottom corner.

Unfold the paper.

These next two steps are the only hard steps.  You need to fold the paper in thirds, but in a triangular shape. 

It should look like this when you have folded it into thirds. We thought it sort of looked like the head of a fox.

Then, fold that shape in half.

Trim off the top to make all the edges even.

Next -- cut, carve, and trim a design. 

Lastly, open your paper to reveal your six-sided snowflake.

It took us a few tries to get the hang of this, but once we got it we could make the snowflakes very quickly and more complex.

Learning how to mark the center.

Trying to figure out how to fold in thirds.

My daughter's first snowflake.

My youngest had a chance to experiment with scissors too.

There was excitement to open the snowflakes every time.

My son's first snowflake that he made while in his snow-day jammies!

Cutting the snowflakes was tough for my three-year-old, but he gave it a good effort.  He learned that is was fun to have daddy do the cutting and have him open the snowflakes.

My daughter learned an important lesson....

Don't cut the tip off your folded piece of paper.

We loved the suprises that each snowflake gave us. This one had a dove shape!

There were paper scraps everywhere!

Peek-a-boo!

This simple project produced all these beautiful designs.

No two of our snowflakes were alike, almost, almost, but not quite.

A new Peas book will be available in July 2014, Little Green Peas: A Big Book of Colors! Pre-order today! And don't forget about 1-2-3 Peas.




Links:

1. Keith Baker's Website

2. Happy Birthday Keith Baker - Happy Birthday Author 2011 (Pea-ple Shopping Bags)

3. LMNO Peas Review plus Pea People Craft - Brimful Curiosities

4. Text Interview - Readeo

5. LMNO Peas Review - Teaching Mentor Texts

6. Keith Baker Visits Wichita - YouTube

7. Keith Baker School Visit - KPTS Channel 8 Facebook Page