Thursday Blurb: Writing, Creativity, and Booktrailers

I am in the process of doing a little virtual organizing and mid-summer cleaning. In the process, I came across a few items that I thought would be particularly interesting … so much so, in fact, that I couldn’t wait until the next New Resources Roundup to post. So here they are.

Mrs. P herself starts us off with the announcement of her second annual  “Be a Famous Writer” contest for children. The contest opens for submissions on 1 September 2010 and runs through 15 October 2010.  beginning September 1st. Kids asges 4 to 13 are invited (read: encouraged) to submit their stories: fiction or nonfiction, and on any topic. Length ranges fro m250 to 1,000 words. The entries will be divided into two groups for judging: one for kids ages 4 to 8, the other for kids ages 9 to 13.  From the press release:

Two grand prize winners (one from each age group) will have their stories read by Mrs. P herself and an artist will create original illustrations to accompany the story. Each winner will receive a bound copy of the illustrated story, as well as having it posted on MrsP.com. Both grand prize winners and up to eight runners-up will also each will receive a $25 gift certificate to Powell’s Books. The judges this year include best-selling author Meg Cabot, Garfield creator Jim Davis, and Danny Kallis, producer and creator of Disney Channel’s The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

Speaking of letting kids’ creativity shine … check out Booktrailers for Readers. This is a website of book trailers. Some are professionally made, but many are made by kids themselves. Enter the theater to watch Blockbusters (kid-made book trailers) or Cult Classics (the teacher favorites). The creators also have a link to a collection of book trailers for early elementary students, too. There’s also a video on how to make a book trailer, as well as a page with rules for book blogging.  Leave it to Susan Stephenson of the Book Chook to find this for me.

One of the byproducts of all those book trailers is that it can help kids find their next read. If you’re still not convinced about how important multimedia learning is, then do check out this video. It starts with the how to make a book trailer and then the kids give you stats and other data that is just staggering.