Past Workshops

                In this workshop, guest author Kimberly Ridley will show you how to start a nature journal and then turn your notes into a poem or the beginning of a story. You’ll work with materials like bones, feathers, nests and more, and maybe explore outdoors as well. Kim will show you how to experiment with observation, description, and imagination to sharpen your super powers as a writer!

                Join me as we unlock the mysteries of a collection of local artifacts! Can you use your knowledge of history and reasoning skills to discover why and how each artifact was actually used?

                In this workshop, you will draw inspiration from the small details of life in order to create thoughtful works of poetry. You will learn how to use poetry as a way to bring simple photographs to life with inventive stories in verse. This workshop will offer an opportunity for independent creativity as well as the option to collaborate with fellow writers.

               Come to this workshop and create a character using paper punch shapes. Make a gnome, animal, or even an alien! Then, fill in the blanks to begin the writing process!

                We use our five senses to explore the world every day. Thinking and writing about our five senses can help us better describe different topics and how we feel about them. In this workshop, you will choose a topic and describe it through the five senses: sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. With brainstorming and group collaboration, a rough draft will be created along with a visual display.

                 You have stories that no one can tell but you. You have experiences and ideas that can teach 

                 all  of us. Our goal today is to find the storytellers inside each of us. In this workshop, we will each create a writer’s notebook where you can record things that you notice, observe, and 

                 think about. Your writer’s notebook will be a place where you can house your writing ideas and return to in order to grow, restructure, rethink, and revise, and connect ideas. You will partake in various writing activities in your very own writer’s notebook that will help foster your creativity and writing skills.

                Enter the room as a young author and leave as a scientist. During this session you will use your senses to describe observations and create hypotheses. Can you guess what is in the mystery box using your senses? Join in to find out!

                  Join me on an outdoor excursion on the University of Maine at Presque Isle campus, to find three trees. Examine the trees closely, then write one word or a phrase that describes each tree. Back in the classroom, working with a small group, create a Woodsy Poem describing
one of the trees!

                What if elephants could dance? What if dogs had people for pets? In this workshop, we’ll 

                 explore random combinations of nouns and verb phrases, then illustrate those scenes to 

                 make the impossible seem like a possibility. The only supplies required are your imagination and a sense of fun!

                 Do you have a favorite song? Do you ever wish you could write one of your own? Are you
often walking around the house humming little tunes that you make up in your head? Well,
now is your chance to combine your creativity with your skills of writing words, and put them
to music! You’re sure to enjoy this workshop learning the basics of songwriting!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Come make science happen right

before your eyes and eat it too. In this workshop you will make your own ice cream.

                 You will start with a blank piece of paper and have a brief amount of time to start a short story. When the timer goes off, you will pass your work to your neighbor and let them continue the story. This will continue until stories reach their original writers, and then we will share. This workshop is intended to expose you to the importance of creativity, trusting the process, responding to feedback, and seeing multiple perspectives.

                 Does your character have a spiky black mohawk or fluffy blonde ponytails? This may sound like a weird Guess Who game, but these are the questions you ask yourself when bringing a character to life in image. In this workshop, you will learn the importance of line quality, color theory, and the use of texture in art. First you will complete a short “Madlib” type worksheet to help form a creative character to work with. You will then be provided with a plethora of mixed media and have time to create this character on paper. You will walk away with a greater knowledge of how line, color, and texture can evoke different emotions from the audience to better execute the purpose of the illustration, to enhance the written words, and parallel the intended narrative.