By Stephanie Solland

Fourth Grade Teacher at Pacelli Catholic Schools

On Tuesday, May 16, five Pacelli fourth and fifth grade students had the opportunity to attend the 2017 Young Authors, Young Artists Conference in Rochester.

This year’s Pacelli attendees were Lexi Lewis, Grace Schara, Avari Drennan, Kate Rauen and Addy Olson. These five students were selected based on their application explaining their passion for writing, drawing, or creating.

The conference is a program that is offered to local students by the Southeast Service Cooperative. This is the conference’s 30th year! According to the Southeast Service Cooperative, the goal of the conference is to promote student enthusiasm and competence in written and visual forms of communication.

Students began their day with a keynote speaker. This year’s keynote was author Lisa Bolt Simons. She is an author of 27 nonfiction children’s books, three middle grade sports novels and an adult history book.

During her presentation students gained knowledge of the different genres that she writes about — realistic fiction and nonfiction.

After the keynote presentation, students attended three different classroom sessions on topics of their choice that focused on writing, illustrating, sculpting, painting, poetry, readers’ theatre, or origami.

Some of our students’ favorites this year included: “Who Can Resist Watercolor Resist Painting?”  “Origami Isn’t Just Folded Paper,” and “Create a Project with Air Dry Clay.” The watercolor resist session was lead by Amy Christie. This class allowed students to create designs and experiment with watercolor resist techniques using markers.

At the origami session led by Kathleen Sheridan, students learned a brief history of origami and then created their own model to take home.

At the clay pottery session, presenters Tracy Calmes and Amy Christie gave students the opportunity to design and take home their own sculpture or bowl.

It was a great day full of creativity and learning!

If you are interested in learning more about Pacelli Catholic Schools visit our website at www.pacellischools.org, email admin@pacellischools.org, or call 507-437-3278.