During the last few weeks of my son's school, I volunteered to speak at Career Day. I knew it would be good practice for someday doing author visits. And it sure was. I was able to notice what the kids reacted to and see how the school organized my visit. I had thought I'd do my 15 minute presentation two or three times, but they had me do it NINE times! I was exhausted by the end. But it was still great. My main takeaway was that they like to be involved. While I didn't have any activity that had the kids get on their feet, I did show them photos and do a guessing game. That was a keeper.
If you hope to do author visits someday, see if you can be a speaker at a school's Career Day! Or volunteer to read during Reading Week. Get in some practice!

I am finally getting around to mentioning that I went to the Children's Literature Conference at UNLV again this Spring. It used to be geared for teachers in their Education Department, but this year they teamed with SCBWI and made it great for authors as well. It's a small gathering, so the speeches and breakouts were small and intimate. I highly recommend going!