Alphabet Forest 2020
Author, illustrator, and educator Debra Frasier introduces the Alphabet Forest 2020, in which your favorite authors, illustrators, and volunteers share videos, activities, and ideas for a literacy experience at home or in a classroom. Play the vocabulary game! Get your paper, glue, and favorite crayons or markers ready!
Debra Frasier demonstrates how to make a Game Card so we can collect our words, just as hundreds of people do each year at the Minnesota State Fair. We couldn’t hold the Fair in 2020, so we decided to have a Fair at home. (If you’d rather, here’s a printable version of the Game Card.)
Author CatherineThimmesh (Girls Think of Everything, Camp Panda) shares a State Fair memory. Be sure to include her favorite words on your Game Card.
Alphabet Forest volunteer Sarah Nelson shares her favorite word. Write it on your Game Card!
Debra Frasier demonstrates how to make our first building for our Alphabet Forest at Home, the Ticket Booth. Have fun!
Exceptional Alphabet Forest volunteer Julie Pomeroy shares her favorite word. Another good word for your game card!
Author Karen Latchana Kenney was inspired to write a haiku about the Minnesota State Fair. Will she inspire you?
Enthusiastic volunteer Heather Quale shares, and demonstrates, her favorite word. She even challenges us to say the word a certain way. Remember to write the word on your game card!
We’re delighted that Tran Thi Minh Phuoc shares what her shoes would say after a visit to the State Fair, along with adventurous State Fair foods!
Blue Ribbon author Melanie Heuiser Hill shows us a GAME to play, on our own or with partners, using the alphabet and our favorite words from the State Fair. What are your favorite words?
Join Debra Frasier as she shares cardboard tips and places to feature your Alphabet Forest in your own home. Your thinking cap will be smokin’!
The Minnesota State Fair brings you At-Home Fair Fun on their website: downloadables, poetry writing, our Blue Ribbon authors’ book lists, and a Minnesota Agriculture Crossword Puzzle developed by our very own Anita Dualeh. Thanks, Anita!
Blue Ribbon author Sarah Warren honors the Moo Booth with a checklist for drinking all the chocolate milk you possibly can. Join in the fun and drink up!
Blue Ribbon authors Pat Bauer and David Geister are creating their own State Fair in their backyard! One essential ingredient? Crop art!! We honor our state’s fine agricultural contributions with crop art. Join Pat and Dave with a drawing, beans, and glue.
Blue Ribbon author and poet Yvonne Pearson inspires us to write poetry about State Fair food. An Ode to _________? You can do that!!
Lisa Bullard, one of the Alphabet Forest’s Blue Ribbon authors, shares wonderful new words she found in the Dictionary … and you can, too. Include them in a story or poem and on your Game Card. Enjoy these new words!
The Alphabet Forest at Home welcomes Blue Ribbon author Nancy Bo Flood, who shows us how to make a Ferris wheel and a diamond poem for our virtual Fair, with the help of her grandchildren.
Blue Ribbon author David LaRochelle and his cowleague Cow discuss Cow’s favorite State Fair words. Can you predict what they might be?
Debra Frasier demonstrates how to make your favorite State Fair food booths for your Alphabet Forest at Home.
Blue Ribbon illustrator Jonathan Thunder (Bowwow Powwow and Gidjie and the Wolves) shows us how to create the State Fair’s Butterfly House at home! What’s his favorite part?
Many of you will recognize author Elizabeth Verdick, who writes the Small Walt books about everybody’s favorite snowplow. Today she takes us to her favorite place at the State Fair. Need a hint? Oink!
Alphabet Forest volunteer Lola Dee is also a healthcare worker. She has a very important favorite word to share with us. Definitely a word for our game cards. Thank you, Lola, for the work you are doing.
Blue Ribbon author Lisa M. Bolt-Simons demonstrates how to spell some of her favorite State Fair words and how to create an acrostic poem. She worked at the State Fair as a famous character. Can you guess who?
Join Blue Ribbon author Aimée Bissonette as she shows us how she comes up with wacky story ideas so you can, too!
When we put out the call for videos, we recognized that making a video isn’t possible for everyone. We were DELIGHTED to receive treasured volunteer Deena Strohman’s favorite word in the mail. Be sure to write this word on your Game Card. Deena has been a part of the Alphabet Forest for many years so we’re happy she can join us in this year of the Alphabet Forest at Home. (Enjoy Deena’s poem from last year, too.)
Blue Ribbon authors Lee Ann Landstrom and Karen Shragg are naturalists as well so they look at the State Fair through an interesting perspective … what’s yucky? You’ll gain some new words for your game card, too.
Blue Ribbon author Margi Preus shows us how to make a really big pig at home … with a unique (but rhyming) feature. Can you predict what that will be? Enjoy this and have fun trying it at your home!
Are you missing the animal barns at the State Fair? Well, you can tour a barn with live animals … it’s Mary Casanova’s barn … and sing along with her dog, Nellie.
That gal with the creative ideas, Debra Frasier, demonstrates building the Giant Slide and the Swings at the Fair, using cardboard and glue and paper and markers. And there are two new words for your Game Card!!
Anita Dualeh created this Fabulous Fair Alphabet Crossword just for you. Download the PDF and enjoy the challenge.
Blue Ribbon author John Coy shares a series of adjectives, descriptive words, that describe the State Fair. Can you think of ways to apply these words to your favorite parts of the State Fair?
Missing your holiday card family photo at the Alphabet Forest? Color your own set of letters with these black and white downloads. (Look here for Fabulous Fair Banner Letters) Attach colored letters to cardboard (or laminate). Slice a large pool noodle with a matte knife just to the core circle. Slip letters into the slice and, ta-dah! You have your own Photo Booth!
Did someone say “acrostic”? As in, you have many puzzles but I’d really like an “acrostic”? Thanks to Anita Dualeh, educator, for creating this puzzle to share with everyone in the Alphabet Forest. Download it here!
Tah-dah!!! At last our Cardboard State-Fair-at-Home is ready for YOU to visit! Watch this scissors-paper-glue-State Fair Story unfold, as told by Debra Frasier—and we get a night-time tour, too. Do you love the State Fair at night? Have you been making your own State Fair at home?
Blue Ribbon authors Alan Page and Kamie Page share a very important word for agriculture and good health … buzzzzz.
Blue Ribbon author Nancy Loewen challenges us with one of the coolest words “onomatopoeia” and all the fun things we can do with the words that fall within this category. You’ll want to buzzzz about this one!
Alphabet Forest volunteer Vicki Palmquist shares her favorite word, “razzmatazz,” which satisfies TWO of the letters on your game card, “r” and “z”.
Blue Ribbon author and illustrator Mike Wohnoutka shows us how to make a chicken out of paper, glue, and crayons or markers. Bawk-bawk-bawk!
Here is a find-the-word puzzle and a crop art challenge, honoring the Horticulture Building at the Minnesota State Fair. Great idea seeds! Thank you, Anita Dualeh, for contributing these.
Alphabet Forest founder Debra Frasier shows us how to make a blue ribbon for this historic 2020 Virtual Alphabet Forest, our prize for completing the Alphabet Forest Game Card. And there’s a bonus: a Y‑word for our cards.
Blue Ribbon author Tracy Nelson Maurer shares her favorite memories of the Fair … so many new ideas and things to learn about!
A big salute to educator Anita Dualeh for pulling together these links to agricultural education resources, rounding out the Alphabet Forest materials for home and classroom. Teaching Ag in the Classroom is essential! Download the list here.
Author Catherine Urdahl challenges us to write a State Fair mystery, with lots of good ideas about getting started and getting finished.
Anita Dualeh created these Silly Fill-ins for you to download and select words and phrases to fill in the blanks. When you’re done, you’ll have written your own story about the State Fair!
Rounding out our authors’ contributions to the Alphabet Forest, author and poet Jill Kalz shares her State Fair memories about yardsticks, mini-donuts and milk, and all the freebies we collect at the Fair. Sweet memories indeed! Plus three more words for your game card: Q, U, and D words.
Good night, Alphabet Forest! Good night, Alphabet Forest visitors! Good night, Minnesota State Fair! See you next year.
Alphabet Forest Founder Debra Frasier offers her thank you to each of the authors and illustrators who volunteered their time to share their memories, words, and projects with each of us who are creating our Alphabet Forest at Home. Don’t miss this touching tribute about communicating and working together.
A special thanks to Anita Dualeh (educator, long-time on-the-ground staff member, and project manager at the Alphabet Forest) for volunteering to organize the recipes and create the printed games and printables for homes and classrooms.
A special thanks to these volunteers who responded to our short-notice call for word-videos and pictures! In 2021, Come join the 400+ team of word lovers who volunteer to make the Alphabet Forest a one-on-one special experience for all our visitors! We need you! Long live the alphabet! Thank you, Lola Dee, Sarah Nelson, Vicki Palmquist, Julie Pomeroy, Heather Quale, and Deena Strohmann.
