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Life’s experience basis of ladybug storybook |
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Thursday, 01 October 2009 |
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• Former area teacher returns to classrooms as author
 By MICHELLE ZLOMKE
Chief Managing Editor
Jeanette Embree Hopkins imparted rhymes, jingles and a little encouraging advice on familiar territory last week. This former Custer County resident and elementary teacher returned to the area to share lessons from her most recent work as a writer.
“The best stories you can write are stories about things that have happened to you,” Jeanette told the first grade students in Broken Bow.
She then recounted how the hospitalization of here granddaughter, Chloe, inspired her new children’s book, “The LadyBug Waltz.”
The Tuesday morning visit to Broken Bow’s first grade classrooms followed Jeanette’s presentation to parents and children at Anselmo-Merna Schools’ Family Reading Night Monday. She also read to elementary students at A-M during the day Monday.
Anselmo-Merna elementary teacher Deb Marple invited Jeanette to speak in Custer County.
The two worked together as elementary teachers in Berwyn in the early 1980s. Jeanette grew up in Custer County.
“It was important to have her here,” Deb said. “It really helps our kids to realize that, even though they grow up in a small community and there are not a lot of opportunities, they are not limited by that. They know they can do something important.”
Jeanette and her husband, Bruce, are environmental writers and live in Iowa.
They share environmental experiences with teachers and environmental educators in workshops throughout the United States.
Their current trip has them visiting with elementary students, where Jeanette shares the story of their 5-year-old granddaughter, Chloe.
Chloe was born with a heart defect and has had five corrective surgeries. Jeanette tells children of the ladybugs that gathered on the window of Chloe’s hospital room during one stay.
That’s when she notes that the best writing is fostered by experience.
“There were all these ladybugs and I thought, ‘Hmmm, this is an idea for a story or a song,’” Jeanette said. “So I picked up some crayons and a napkin and wrote whatever came to my mind.”
The idea became the book, “The LadyBug Waltz.”
It incorporates rhyme, actions and song that Jeanette says help reinforce the lessons. “The books that I love are the books that you can really use,” Jeanette said. “One thing I did is incorporate music, art and science.”
In elementary schools, Jeanette follows her reading with a ladybug craft.
Bruce said they visit schools to share a dual message with educators, parents and children -- be responsible and be playful.
Bruce said they want children to think more about stewardship of the environment.
“Our stewardship responsibility is great,” Bruce said. “We have a responsibility to do the right thing.”
They also want to help parents and teachers reinforce responsibility through “real play.”
They encourage play time that allows children to create and control their own environment, he said.
It’s a habit they share with their own grandchildren, Bruce said.
He said they take day trips with their grandchildren, who document the trips with photographs. Recently, he picked up four of his grandchildren during the school day so they could help clean up a state recreation area.
Their grandchildren may not even realize there are lessons in those activities.
Recently, Bruce said, Chloe commented that they must be the “luckiest people alive.” |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 05 October 2009 )
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