How Visits from The Be Books’ Lauren Grabois Fischer Enhance the Classroom Experience
Since its launch in 2015, independently published children’s book collection The Be Books has been a hit in homes and in classrooms across the world. While the series’ strong use of social emotional learning concepts has helped countless students, kids and their teachers implement valuable lessons into their everyday lives, an extra helping hand from the books’ creative mind itself never hurts. Now, series author Lauren Grabois Fischer has found that personally connecting with these children herself during school visits to be one of the most effective ways of teaching The Be Books’ positive concepts, even adapting to virtual visits throughout the covid-19 pandemic.
While having previously toured classrooms in person, the coronavirus-born social distancing measures have become an unforeseen asset to Grabois Fischer’s visits, allowing her to instantly join in with schools across the country within a matter of seconds. Plus, communicating with children through a computer screen removes the sanitary need for facemasks on Grabois Fischer’s end, allowing students to follow her read alongs easily and make the event all that more personal.
Tapping into her own experience in the classroom as a teacher, Grabois Fischer has adjusted her The Be Books’ visits to cater to each specific age group she speaks to and their learning capacity, while, of course, all ages are able to experience being read one of The Be Books’ collections by Grabois Fischer herself. For the youngest crowd, including pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and first graders, Grabois Fischer talks about being an author, the importance of reading and writing, and leads the classroom through an activity like creating images with their fingerprints, demonstrating to them how fingerprints can express individuality and make something beautiful out of that uniqueness.
For kids ranging from second to third grade, Grabois Fischer places a distinct emphasis on the huge power of writing and how it allows people to thoughtfully and safely express their feelings, as well as hosts a question and answers session, exploring concepts laid out in The Be Books a little deeper than with the younger set.
Fourth and fifth graders experience an even more in-depth classroom visit, with Grabois Fischer typically reading Love Grows Love and empowering students to create the world they desire around them, highlighting how putting love out into the universe brings it back to them in turn, like a mirror. Many within this age group ask Grabois Fischer further questions about what it takes to become a successful writer -- a subject dear to her heart, as a school visit with an author during her childhood, much like the ones she does now, is what ultimately inspired Grabois Fischer to begin writing professionally herself.
The visits are made all that more exciting by the opportunity for each kid to order a personalised and signed book from The Be Books’ collection, which they then receive the day of an event alongside a specially matched pencil and bookmark. As every child has a character to relate to within the books, the personalised volumes help make them feel even more immersed and connected to the pages within and turns the visit into a cherished lifetime memory, to now be kept safely and beloved on a bookshelf at home.
To inquire about Grabois Fischer and The Be Books making a visit to your child’s school, email Grabois Fischer or visit The Be Books’ website or Instagram for more.