Media

Kelly is a founding member of The Local Bookshelf. The Local Bookshelf shares children’s books with inspirational, reflective and important messages for children and their grown-ups written by authors in Vancouver, Canada and surrounding areas. 

A book that challenges the traditional use of the word ‘smart’ offers a great lesson for kids starting school and beginning to understand what makes them fit in, but also what makes them unique.What Does It Mean to Be Smart? is about all different types of learning and how each person uses a different approach to deepen our understanding of our passions, hone our skills and talents and spread joy through our discoveries.

Welcome to our May session with guest speakers Kelly Shuto, Chelsea Taylor, and Endie Thompkins. They share with us some incredible examples of learning stories that they co-create with their learners to amplify communication between home and school.

Watch Story Time with Stacey read Kelly Shuto's What Does It Mean To Be Brave.

The BCECTA #BCed Teacher-Author program launched in February 2023

Our range of Teacher-author books support the BC Curriculum as well as many other themes such as SOGI, SEL, and Anti-Racism.

Members of BCECTA can apply to request a by-donation author's virtual visit to your school.

Surrey Teacher Kelly Shuto reflects on the importance of personal self-awareness as the first step in building self-awareness in students and the ability to self-assess core competencies.

Kelly Shuto is a K/1 teacher in the Surrey district as well as a k-2 math mentor. She has contributed to our BC curriculum resource site by sharing her in-depth documentation and examples of how the core competencies live in our classrooms. She is also a children’s book author! Her first book, one of my toddler’s favourites, is titled What Does it Mean to be Brave.  You will often find her presenting workshops on how to use the core competencies to create a deeper sense of self in the primary grades.

When a story makes you feel, it draws you in. Whether the story defines bravery as asking for help or shares the challenges of motherhood, if I feel my nose tingling I know the words have struck an emotion. Talking about bravery and redefining its characteristics into confidence and kindness got me sappy.

Time and time again I have found that kids really benefit from using bibliotherapy techniques. Bibliotherapy is the strategy of using books as an intervention in counseling sessions. I remember I was in high school the first time I read a book about someone struggling with something I was dealing with. I finally felt seen and it was an important and profound moment for me.