New Horizons

For the first time I have been introduced to the world of blogging. I am excited about sharing with you my passions and my adventures on the usually sunny Kapiti Coast.

One of my achievements I am proud of is my latest Picture Book called You're Not Eating Me. Let me tell you how this book was born.

I was teaching my Year 3/4 class a very interesting lesson on Alliteration.  Usually after class I go for my regular run.  I run about 10km in a session and during that time I simply love to just think.  And it occured to me on this day that I could take this lesson on Alliteration and actually turn it into something fun. Something the kids would love and enjoy.  And because they love it when we sing in class I thought my idea would simply be perfect!  So during my 40 minute run I came up with the words, but because I obviously didn't have pen and paper with me had to keep repeating it to myself until I came back to class.  Afterwards I spent about 20 minutes playing around on the piano and finally it just all fell into place.  I had words.  Fun words!  And music!  And now it was simply just to find somebody who could illustrate my book.  Not an easy task because I'm not much of an artist and I wanted something kids could really relate to.  So I did the only logical thing - I held a competition at school.

I was so incredibly impressed when Chelsea Osborne one of the Year 8 students came back to me with a selection of illustrations.  I was totally blown away by the detail she put into these pictures and finally after 8 months I was all set to get my "baby" published.

I wanted to offer something more.  Something more than just simply a book.  So I added a CD.   I included the "You're not eating me" song along with 11 others that I wrote and wanted to share with kids.  I know that these were popular songs based on the reactions in class.