Thank You, Kate Messner

For the past month, I have been reading Kate Messner's book, Marty McGuire, to my 3rd graders and they have really enjoyed listening to the story.  It's always neat to read about another class with students the same age and grade as yourself.

About halfway through the book, I got an idea to bring Kate to my students via a Skype visit.  I follow @KateMessner on Twitter and contacted her about visiting with my students and she was happy to oblige.  We got a date all set up which was a few days after we finished the book, so it was perfect timing!

Yesterday, January 31st, was the date of our Skype visit and you should have seen the 3rd graders before school.  They were coming into the library asking me, "Mrs. Malphy, is this the day of our Skype visit with Kate?" and when I told them it was, they just started jumping up and down and screaming.  It's not many days that a famous author takes time out of her busy schedule to talk to students in rural, Wisconsin so needless to say, the kids were ecstatic!

The students came to the Library Technology Room where we conduct our Skype visits shortly before noon, armed with notebooks full of questions for Kate.  Do you like frogs?  How long does it take you to write a book?  Why did you make Marty a tomboy?  Is Veronica Grace modeled after someone you know?  Would you be friends with Marty?  Oh, they had lots of them!  And Kate was gracious enough to answer all the questions that my students had, making each one of them feel special. 

My students went and blogged about our Skype visit as soon as we were finished and while I have yet to take a look at the blog postings, I know they're going to be real positive based off the comments I was hearing in the computer lab as they were blogging. 

Kate Messner, I would like to thank you so much for taking the time to Skype with my students.  Being able to bring an author right into the walls of our school via technology was absolutely wonderful!  I know that many of my students will never meet anyone famous, but through your visit, they were able to actually talk to a famous author and realize that maybe someday they, too, could become an author just like you and write about things they love.  They so enjoyed your visit, as did I, and I'm hoping more of my students can get to know you through your books and our visits in the coming months and years!