West Side students help launch new 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' book

WORLAND - What started as some Instagram posts and video blogs by Worland fifth grade teacher Vanessa Keller has resulted in some unique opportunities for both her and her students.

One of the opportunities occurred on a global scale last Thursday as Worland fifth graders in Vanessa Keller's language arts classes had the opportunity to participate in a global book launch of the next Diary of A Wimpy Kid by author Jeff Kinney.

Kinney has finished his 15th in the series, "The Deep End." The book was released last Tuesday, Oct. 27 and a virtual "pool party" featuring classes and students from across the globe premiered last Thursday, Oct. 29.

Keller's homeroom class watched the premiere live, while other West Side students watched it at various times throughout the day.

Keller said a few things occurred to lead up to the global pool party with Kinney. The first thing was when she was contacted by a representative from Scholastic.

"I have a Teacher Instagram where I communicate with teachers all over the globe, I'm pretty active on that. I was contacted through that by a Scholastic rep. They asked if I would do a book talk for the Judy Newman blog," Keller explained.

She said each week Scholastic puts out a $1 book deal and a teacher does a book talk on how you can use that book in your classroom. Then Scholastic puts the talk on their Scholastic website and sends it out to every educator that gets Scholastic emails.

"It's terrifying but it was a lot of fun," Keller said. While she has completed her talk on the book "Pie" by Sarah Weeks, that talk has not aired. She said it is expected to be released in mid-November.

In addition to the talk about "Pie," Scholastic also sent Keller two full class sets of the book.

"With that I did a lot of fun extension activities," Keller said, adding that pre-COVID-19, she would have brought community members into the classroom to make pies with the students since the book has pie recipes throughout. Instead, she purchased some pies and the students had a celebration at the end of the study of the book.

She said she interviewed some of her students and those might also be included in the blog once it is released.

GLOBAL PARTY

Through that experience another Scholastic representative reached out to Keller asking if she had any "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" fans in her class.

"It is so popular among kids; it is probably one of the most popular books that comes out of our library because it is light-hearted. It is great for all readers, not just those higher-end readers.

"What I love about the "Wimpy Kid" books it gets those reluctant readers to start reading," Keller said. "It's that gateway book to get them interested in reading."

The first "Wimpy Kid" book was released in 2007, she said. Since then there have been 14 more with the latest "The Deep End," and there have also been four successful movies from the series.

"When they reached out to me I said 'Yes, I will make whatever work. This is amazing, because this is one of those books that every kid knows, I'm not kidding when I say every kids knows it," Keller said.

From that there were nine classrooms throughout the country featured for the global book launch via the internet last Thursday, Oct. 29.

She said the Wimpy Kid production team chose where each classroom would participate with various events planned as part of the pool party.

"Because I had that interview with Scholastic Life they said 'you are energetic and full of life we want you in the dance off,'" Keller said.

But, wait, one problem, where to get pool props for the dance off video. When a Scholastic representative asked if Keller had any or could get any, she said it was fall/winter in Wyoming and it was doubtful any local stores would have pool accessories at this time.

"The Scholastic rep sent our class hundreds of dollars of gear including the full on wetsuit I had to wear," Keller said.

From that moment there were some rehearsals and the recording of the "live" pool party. Anyone who has watched a recent Super Bowl halftime show, knows that there can be issues with a live performance. Scholastic and "Wimpy Kid" production representatives did not want any issues for the global book launch and pool party so things were recorded live on Oct. 21, before the video was shown globally on Scholastic website on Thursday, Oct. 29.

Keller said the rehearsals were stressful but fun as author Jeff Kinney was, of course, a part of it. Having him call her name and say hello to her the first time she said, "was one of those celebrity moments where you are geeking out especially as a language arts teacher with one of the most popular kids book of all time; it was really really cool for me but also stressful."

Unfortunately not all of her language arts students were able to participate. She said students could chose not to participate. Those wanting to participate had to have media releases signed by their parents for both Scholastic and Wimpy Kid productions.

During the pool party, Kinney had a wheel that he would spin that would take him to different activities around the pool, sending him to different classrooms or to different students around the globe. It started with him teaching one student on a white board how to draw some of the Wimpy Kid characters as Kinney does his own illustrations.

While Kellers students were not chosen for that part, She was given the artist white board easel and markers to use in her classroom.

Since the recording of the pool party was essentially live, Keller said she and the students never knew when the wheel Kinney was spinning would land on the dance off.

When it finally did, the students were "so excited. It was one of those teachers moments that makes your heart happy. They were just in it, didn't care about friends, how they looked, they had no reservations they were in it to win it," Keller said.

And win it they did it. What did they win, a personal virtual tour of the Wimpy Kid studio with Kinney, to be scheduled at a later date.

During the viewing of the pool party last Thursday, Keller also announced to her students that they would also be receiving another prize but she was keeping it a surprise until it arrived.

She said the students will be in another video about the latest Wimpy Kid book on the Scholastic website.

Keller said she does not know what on her Instagram feed led the Scholastic rep to reach out to her, but noted they told her they "loved how honest and how enthusiastic I was with my students."

While the experience made a busy October even busier, Keller would not change a thing.

She said they had rehearsals, the recording on Oct. 21, the challenges of teaching in a pandemic, the waiting during the "live event and not knowing when they would perform, plus the same week it was parent-teacher conferences.

"It was so crazy but 100 times worth it because it's just one of those things that small town Wyoming people don't usually get these kind of opportunities. I was going to make it work no matter what."

As for the pool gear that they received, Keller gets to keep that for her classroom. She said she does room transformations all the time, to turn the classroom into different themes as the students work on state standards. Most recently she used black light and glow sticks in a dark room.

At the end of each school year, her classroom transforms into a luau and the poolside equipment will be perfect addition to help with that transformation.

The pool party video can be viewed at https://www.scholastic.com/clubs/wimpykidwebcast/index.html with the Worland students in the dance off about 33 minutes into the party.