{"id":168887,"date":"2026-04-17T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168887\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T21:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T21:32:10","slug":"k-5-excitement-builds-for-uniquely-special-author-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/168887\/","title":{"rendered":"K-5 excitement builds for uniquely special author visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A9909-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-68434\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>With all eyes on outer space this spring, elementary students across the district have been buzzing with excitement as they prepare to welcome author Stacy McAnulty to their schools later this month.<\/p>\n<p>McAnulty is an award-winning children\u2019s book author and a BC graduate. The engineer-turned-writer has authored dozens of books popular with students in grades K-5. They include McAnulty\u2019s middle-grade book The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, a highly-acclaimed children\u2019s novel honored as a \u201cbest book of the year\u201d by NPR and Kirkus Reviews.<\/p>\n<p>McAnulty\u2019s picture books include Excellent Ed and the \u201cOur Universe\u201d series of picture books. The colorful, fun-filled, and fact-filled Our Universe books include titles such as Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years, Moon! Earth\u2019s Best Friend, Sun! One in a Billion and more.<\/p>\n<p>Over the last several weeks, second graders across the district have spent time in their library classes gearing up for McAnulty\u2019s visit by creating board games based on the Our Universe books. Working individually and in small groups, the students used their own creativity and imagination to map and draw unique playing boards, design all of the moving pieces and create \u201cfact cards\u201d using the McAnulty\u2019s books as resource material. (Fact: A day on Mars is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than a day on Earth.)<\/p>\n<p>The students worked hard to create challenging games to enjoy with their friends and classmates. They each took turns rolling the dice, counting out their moves and reading their fact cards. (See photos below from Cailie Hafener\u2019s library class at Hamagrael.)<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the generosity of the elementary PTOs and PTAs at Eagle, Elsmere, Glenmont, Hamagrael and Slingerlands, McAnulty will visit all five elementary schools the week of April 27-May 1.<\/p>\n<p>Students and staff look forward to welcoming her back to BC!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A0179-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"students playing board game&#10;\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68438 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A9948-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"teacher points to game board while students look on\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68432 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A0288-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two students play board game with dice\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68435 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A0144-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two students coloring\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68439 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0L5A9932-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"two students coloring\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68433 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/x0L5A0331-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"one student reads quietly\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1708\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-68431 size-full\"  \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all eyes on outer space this spring, elementary students across the district have been buzzing with excitement&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,65401,52634,67576,67577,67578],"class_list":{"0":"post-168887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-eagle-news","12":"tag-elsmere-news","13":"tag-glenmont-news","14":"tag-hamagrael-news","15":"tag-slingerlands-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}