Central Florida School Speaker- Guest Post by "The Teacher"

As many of you know I am a second grade teacher in the state of Florida. Each year our school celebrates writing with a special week called Young Authors Week. During this week we celebrate authors, and culminate the exciting week by having each child create a book on their own.

This year as our committee met to plan activities, I brought to the table an idea of a guest speaker to start the week off. Being a Title 1 school makes it hard for us to plan exciting events and speakers like this because of our tight budget. This year we had no budget to use for young authors so we had to plan carefully. If you have a tight budget and live near Tampa, Florida, I have the answer for you when it comes to a guest speaker.

 Michael Sterns of Grasshopper Dreams Productions, is the speaker every school should consider booking for a reading week or writing week. Michael Sterns is a self published author of three exciting children’s’ books Kokopelli and the Butterfly, Kokopelli and the Island of Change, and Kokopelli and the Two Tribes. These three books are exquisitely illustrated and filled with 64 pages of beauty. Each book discusses a moral which is so valuable for the students to learn Michael Sterns is not only an author, but a tremendous storyteller.

He has visited over 500 schools performing to over 350,000 students across the nation This past month I had the privilege to work with Michael Sterns and have him booked for our school. Since we were a Title 1 school, he waived the performance fee and agreed to come only on travel and printing expenses. In today’s economy there are not too many performers who are willing to work for free. His only requirements are:

 1. Each child in every grade attends his performance because of his priceless message.

2. He is allowed to sell his books to the students During the performance.

 Michael Sterns uses a PowerPoint presentation and he tells his stories with the help from the students. His performances are engaging, high energy, and exciting to watch. I would highly recommend Michael Sterns to any Elementary School Assembly for any occasion. As an added bonus each child who is able to purchase a book of his gets it personally autographed and delivered within a week of his arrival.