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Author and Illustrator Bob Shea Visits Anderson! Picture book author and illustrator Bob Shea visited Anderson's kindergartens and first grades in our Library Media Center on April 10th. He shared some of his published and unpublished books with us and kept us laughing. Bob Shea's hilarious books include New Socks, Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great, Don't Play with Your Food, I'm a Shark, Cheetah Can't Lose, and Dinosaur Vs. Library. Kindergartners drew along with Mr. Shea and learned some drawing techniques for animals. First graders gave Mr. Shea ideas for a book and he wrote it while they suggested characters, ideas for problems, and how to solve the problems. He taught the children how illustrators of picture books use thumbnail drawings to help plan out their books. Then they edited the ideas together and Bob Shea created the book right in front of them using his special paint markers.
Mr. Shea does the art direction for his books as well as the story and the illustrations. He does it all! Bob Shea had a Question and Answer session as part of his presentations. Here are some of the questions and answers: Q. How do you decorate the hard covers? A. The printers do that part. They put the art that I made onto paper, and they glue it onto the hard cardboard. Q. Do you play with your food? A. Sometimes I push it around with my fork. Sometimes I hide it. If I had a dog I could give it to him. But I try not to play with it Q. How do you know what to draw? A. I draw a story, and then the art director helps me figure out the story. Q. How do you choose which colors to go together? A. In New Socks, only a few colors: black, yellow, orange, and blue, and white, which is the paper. So you have to make sure the colors go together. That happens with practice and by looking at a lot of art. Q. How do you know what to write? A. Sometimes I don't know what to write. Sometimes I try and it doesn't work out. Then for others if it's working, I send it to people to look at and give me advice. Q.What was your first book? A. New Socks. Q. When was it written? A. 2007. Q. Why do you write books? A.Because it is my favorite thing to do. Q.How many books have you written? A. 13 books. Q. Do you have any children? A. Yes, I have a ten year old son, named Ryan, who loves skateboarding. Q. Do you like to read? A. Fun and silly books are my favorite thing to read; that and a book about the 2008 financial meltdown. Q.How long does it take you to write your books? A. Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime took three days, but one book took a year. Q. How old were you when you wrote your first book? A. Seven. Q. Do you like goats? A. Yes! Q. How do you get started with your books? A. Some start with a joke, or something funny, or a sketch. Q. Did you have any special writing teachers or classes as a child? A. I didn't, but I always knew fun writing was legitimate. I read a lot and wrote a lot of stories as a kid. Q. What's your favorite book? A. Big Plans. Q. Why do you have a book about jealousy? A. I noticed when my son was 7 that the kids were starting to be jealous, even though they were all so similar. That gave me the idea. Q.Do you write about friendship on purpose? Or life lessons? A. No, not on purpose. I write about relationships, and relationships aren't perfect. Q. Why do you draw cupcakes? A. They are easy to draw. Q. How do you come up with characters? A. I try to pick characters with traits that match the topic. Like I need a fast character, so: Cheetah. I need a character you'd be jealous of, so: Unicorn. Q. How did you come up with the title for Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great? A. It was what Goat was thinking since he was jealous. Q. Why are your books silly? A. Because that's more fun than being serious.
Author and Illustrator Brett Helquist Visits Anderson! Author and illustrator Brett Helquist visited Anderson on April 9th. He shared his childhood inspiration as an artist, and shared behind-the-scenes information about how to illustrate a book.
Here are some of the things we learned: He was influenced by comics as a child, especially the ones that told a story, like Alley Oop. The illustrator NC Wyeth was a big influence. Howard Pyle, who taught NC Wyeth, was also an influence. Nowadays, he really admires Lisbeth Zwerger’s work.     Left to right: Alley Oop, art by NC Wyeth (top row); art by Howard Pyle, art by Lisbeth Zwerger (bottom row). The Series of Unfortunate Events was Brett Helquist's first job as an illustrator!
The Grumpy Goat book was inspired by his family, who were farmers. The hardest painting he ever did was for A Christmas Carol, and was the Ghost of Christmas Past. One of the hardest characters he ever created was the lump of coal character for Lemony Snicket’s book of the same name.     He has illustrated almost 50 books so far. He uses oil paint and paints large paintings.
He uses color for covers, and black, white and grays for illustrations. His first job was a graphic designer. He did illustrations at night. Mr. Helquist conducted a drawing demonstration for second and third graders, and the students drew alongside his work. Fourth graders contributed to ideas for new artwork that he created right in front of the students.
A. Mr. Helquist does background cross hatching,
but gets tired of that so he switched to a pattern of triangles to make it more
interesting. Q. What authors do you want to work with?
A. Philip Pullman, the Golden Compass author, or Jon Scieszka, author of The Stinky Cheese Man and many other
books. Q. What book would you like to illustrate?
A. Treasure
Island (his very favorite childhood book). Q. Who would you like to switch places with? A. The artist Lisbeth Zwerger. Q. What are the steps to illustrating a book?
A. He starts
by reading it very closely, looking for information about the characters and
setting. Q. Do any characters look like real people?
A. Mostly himself. His wife looks like a character on the Chasing Vermeer cover, but he didn’t
plan it that way. Q. Do you ask the author for ideas first?
A. Not usually. Usually he works with the editor
of the book. Q. Have you written any nonfiction?
A. Not yet, but one book is coming. It will be
on tennis starts Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. Q. What’s your daily life as an artist like? A. He starts his day in an art studio, painting. He paints till lunch. Then he does bookkeeping for business and makes business phone calls. There is a lot of work to do that’s not about the art.
Aladdin Jr. Production Is a Smash! The Anderson School Theatre, under the direction of Sarah Prusasky and Brian Shaheen, presented its second annual musical on March 14 and 15: Aladdin Jr. Students in fifth through eighth grades sang, danced, and made Agrabah come alive. See the photo collage below (click on each photo to enlarge): The New York Daily News covered the show: Anderson School gives 'Aladdin' carpet a ride- NY Daily News View the virtual Playbill here.  Congratulations to Anderson Chess Dragons! On Sunday, January 12th, the Anderson Chess Dragons competed in the 48th Annual Greater New York Scholastic Chess Championships (the "City Championships".) Over 1,000 students competed across various sections. Twenty-nine students represented Anderson, Kindergarteners to 8th graders, with experience levels ranging from first time tournament players to others who had played in over 50 tournaments. Our Chess Dragons did an outstanding job and came away with many team and individual trophies: TEAM TROPHIES Elementary Junior Varsity: 2nd Place Elementary Varsity: 6th Place K-1 Primary: 6th Place INDIVIDUAL TROPHIES Christopher W. Elementary Junior-Varsity- Champion Zane G. Primary Novice - Co-Champion Lucas F.-Y. Primary K-1 - 4th Place Joey L. Junior High Junior Varsity - 5th Place Quentin C. Elementary Varsity- 12th Place
Aarav A. Primary K-1 Unrated Players- 3rd Place Story Pirates Dazzle Anderson Audience! Anderson Middle Schoolers in the Story Pirates elective run by ELA teacher Amy Zolla (pictured below with costumes) with guidance from Story Pirate professionals performed their first show on December 13th.  The troupe takes story ideas created by our elementary students and turns them into clever, very funny skits. Here are some scenes from today's dress rehearsal and performance. Click on the collage below to enlarge the individual images.  Anderson School Winter Showcase Was a Big Success! Anderson's Music Department, Sarah Prusasky and Brian Shaheen, led the fifth through eighth grade students as they performed in the chorus, band, and orchestra on December 12th. Fifth graders also displayed their skills on guitar in fifth grade band, and on strings, and the audience was treated to two rock band performances as well. Click on the collage below to enlarge the images.  AMS Pops Orchestra Played at Sony Atrium! Sarah Prusasky and Brian Shaheen took the AMS Pops Orchestra to the Sony Plaza Atrium in Midtown on December fifth. The students played for workers, tourists and passersby in the huge glass-enclosed space.  O'Shea Campus Hosts First Annual School Bus Driver Appreciation Breakfast! The Anderson School and P.S. 452 welcomed our schools' bus drivers to a special breakfast on December sixth, where we showed our appreciation for their hard work and dedication. Students created cards thanking their drivers for their service, and these were presented to the drivers at the breakfast. Thank you to Anderson Community Coordinator Donna Smiley and P.S.452 Parent Coordinator Sharon Lustig for organizing the event!  Aladdin Auditions Have Begun! Brian Shaheen and Sarah Prusasky, our fabulous Music team, began auditions for this year's musical production of Aladdin on October 28th. Just about twice the number of students in grades five through eight tried out than did so last year, the inaugural year of the musical production at Anderson. Students will continue to audition this week and next as the cast is chosen and stage crew and other tech decisions are made. The level of talent on display during auditions is high!    Chancellor Walcott Visits Anderson!  The NYC DOE Schools Chancellor, Dennis Walcott, paid The Anderson School a visit today. He congratulated the students and staff on our superlative state exam performance and took questions from many students. See NYC.gov for a press release about visits today to the 22 top-performing schools in the city, or click here. Our New Fitness Room Is Here!  AMS students and Anderson staff will be excited to learn that our new fitness room has been installed and is ready for use in the fall! Thanks to a generous grant from the office of City Council Member Gale Brewer, a spare room was renovated. Blackboards were torn out, the room was rewired, and new overhead lights were hung. The room was plastered, painted, and equipped with cushioned mats, an air conditioner, and sixteen cardiovascular machines including treadmills, stationary bikes, two recumbent bikes, and several Arc trainers (elliptical machines). Students will receive safety training and will sign off on a pledge to use the machines responsibly. We look forward to our sports teams, health-related clubs and electives taking advantage of this great new space. Thanks for all the hard work by Principal Jodi Hyde, A.P. Rob Schliessman, and Frank Felix, our Custodian Engineer as they pursued this project from beginning to end. See Our Wonderful Schoolyard Renovation! If you've walked past the O'Shea Campus schoolyard recently, you've probably noticed the contractors hard at work painting the schoolyard, thanks to the generous funding of City Council Member Gale Brewer. Here is a look at the work in progress (click on collage to enlarge images):  Thanks to custodian John P. for access to the roof! | Subscription for iCal click here The P.S. 334-Cast Crew has finished their training, and will be help their classmates produce weather reports on most Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the school year. Enjoy! Current Weather Report Previous Weather Report  Respect for All Week at Anderson The week of February 10th was Respect for All Week in all New York City public schools. Bullying, intimidation, and other forms of bias-based harassment have no place in our schools or communities, and we all need to work together to address this issue. It is the Department of Education’s policy and Anderson’s policy to maintain a safe and supportive learning environment that is free from bias-based harassment, intimidation, and/or bullying on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship/immigration status, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, weight or disability.
This year at Anderson, we are continuing discussions with our students about respect, being kind to one another, and how to be a good member of the community. We have been talking about our cultural differences and sharing with each other how we can all celebrate these differences so we learn from one another. Each class, Kindergarten through Eighth grade, took part in making Cultural Banners and posters that are displayed outside of each classroom. These Cultural Banners express the different ways our students view themselves from the standpoint all of their unique cultural backgrounds.
We are also proud to have Peace in our main lobby entrance of the school. Each class discussed how our Peace Tree can display leaves for all good deeds or acts of kindness that they witness taking place in the building. We hope to teach the simple concept of being nice to one another by helping a friend, consoling a sad student, sharing, or any other kind act that is witnessed. It has been wonderful to see the leaves starting to show up on the Peace Tree and to watch them multiply through the rest of the school year.
It is important to promote respect for diversity and to create a positive school climate so that all students and adults in the school community feel safe and respected. Teaching children to respect others is a shared responsibility. We encourage you to reinforce the message of Respect for All at home with meaningful discussions so that your children will know you support this viewpoint. |
HomeThe Anderson School P. S. 334 is a K-8 public gifted & talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. If you would like to learn more about The Anderson School, please explore the links above and scroll down for photos! |
The Anderson School
Public School 334 | 100 West 77th Street New York, NY 10024
Phone: (212) 595-7193
Fax: (212) 496-2854Public School 334 | 100 West 77th Street New York, NY 10024
Phone: (212) 595-7193
http://www.ps334school.org