One Tired Teacher
One Tired Teacher
OTT 257: Wally Is Worried- Helping Students (and Ourselves) Navigate Big Feelings
A worried watermelon might be exactly what your students need to navigate their big feelings this year. Meet Wally – the adorable protagonist of author Erin Waters' new children's book that's transforming how we approach anxiety in the classroom.
Drawing from her seven years as a first-grade teacher and her personal journey with worry, Waters has crafted a story that resonates deeply with both children and adults. "I've been a worrier since I was a kid," she shares, "and now that I have kids of my own, I see that same side of them." This authentic connection to anxiety makes Wally's journey particularly meaningful for young readers ages 4-8 who are learning to identify and manage their emotions.
What sets this book apart are Waters' innovative paper collage illustrations. Creating characters from colorful paper, household items, and even aluminum foil, she's developed a visual language that's both accessible and enchanting. The vibrant vegetable characters each offer Wally different coping strategies – from Teddy Tomato's "soup breaths" to other practical techniques children can easily remember and apply. One parent already reported her daughter successfully using "Teddy tomato soup breaths" during a stressful softball game, proving these strategies transfer seamlessly from page to real-life application.
Teachers and counselors will appreciate the extensive support materials Waters has created to accompany the book. By scanning the QR code inside the cover, educators can access free printable posters for calm-down corners, bookmarks, worksheets, and digital slides that make implementation seamless. Whether used during back-to-school season to ease transition anxieties, during testing periods, or as part of regular social-emotional learning, Wally's story provides children with concrete tools for managing worry.
Grab your copy of "Wally is Worried" on Amazon today, and visit ErinWatersEDU.com/Wally to access all the free companion resources. Help your students discover that while worries may never completely disappear, they can learn strategies to make those big feelings more manageable – one soup breath at a time.
Wally Is Worried: A Book About Worrying for Kids
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Welcome to One Tired Teacher, episode 257, wally is Worried, helping students and ourselves navigate big feelings. I'm very excited today because I have a very special guest, erin Waters, who is not only a friend, but she is a teacher. She's a teacher author and she is an author author. She just wrote a children's book called Wally is Worried and it is so absolutely adorable. You're going to love it. Today we are recording. It is August 12th.
Speaker 1:This comes out September 1st and today is a day that Wally is Worried has launched into the world on Amazon, so it's super exciting. I've already grabbed my copy and you should definitely check it out. It's so cute and I'm thrilled to bring you this conversation with Erin. Bring you this conversation with Erin. Wally's story of Watermelon who Worries opens up such powerful discussions about anxiety, emotions and helping kids feel safe to be themselves in the classroom. Whether you're teaching social and emotional learning or you're wanting your children to understand that it's safe to feel worried, or if you're teaching social and emotional learning directly, you're a school counselor, you are a student support specialist, you're a media specialist, you're a teacher or you just want to simply build stronger emotional connections during your reading time, you're going to love this story, so we are going to jump in with Aaron. Welcome to One Tired Teacher and even though she may need a nap, this teacher is ready to wake up and speak her truth about the trials and treasures of teaching.
Speaker 2:Here she is, is wide awake. Wait, she's not asleep right now, is she? She is awake right. Okay, From Trina Devery Teaching and Learning your host, Trina Devery.
Speaker 1:So Erin welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Trina, for having me. This is so exciting.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, trina, for having me. This is so exciting, I'm so excited. I'm so excited because it's launch day and also I have gotten a sneak peek of the book and I love it and I adore you, and so I just could not be like even I woke up and then when I saw the pictures I want to let you give a little background, but the pictures with your that your did, your kids do that Did Annie and the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my husband and the kids put it together.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, it was so adorable, and so the listeners are like what is she talking about? So let's, let's talk about it. You, we, they know I already said that you that you have written a book, so tell a little bit about yourself and then a little bit about, like, why you wrote that. That's two questions at once, which is bad. So let's just start with like a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was. I started as a teacher, right, I taught first grade for seven years and I absolutely loved it. But then, you know, along the years, I needed some creative outlets and I started making you know, as we all do, resources for our classroom, and that turned into having a TPT store, which turned into me making you know a sizable enough income that I could leave the classroom. However, my heart for education and teachers and students never really left. So, while I love making resources and I think it's so powerful and life-changing for teachers and students, there was still this little part of me that knew I needed to do a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I've always been a creative person, I think, probably like a lot of people listening, like grew up, like playing school, making books, like just creating all the things. So one of my other loves, of course, is reading, both with my kids and as a grownup. And I decided to fulfill a lifelong dream of writing my own book and I decided, you know why not stop there. I'm going to not only write it, but I want to be the one making the pictures too. So, back in September of 2024, I sat down and decided to start creating my very first book which goes live today. It is called Wally is Worried, and it's about a worried little watermelon who learns coping strategies for his anxiety, which is something I think grownups and kids alike relate to. And yeah, I mean, it's a book very close to my heart and something that was just genuinely fun to create.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, first of all, I mean it. I can't even believe you did the illustrations Like. That is the part that that blows my mind. Not only are the words like so witty and cute and like resonate with your heart and make you feel and like take you on this story. So the storytelling is excellent, but along with that, I've always wanted to write a book, but the thing that stops me has always been the illustrations. But you have done it in such a creative way and then you can capture, like their facial expressions and just all this, all this stuff. It's so good.
Speaker 2:That was definitely probably the biggest hump to get over was the illustration piece. I love arts and crafts. I love, like I said, I love creating, but I've never been. I can draw, but not to the point of drawing illustration. So I actually took a. I took inspiration from one of my own favorite children's authors and illustrators, leo Leone, who does a lot of collage. He cuts out construction paper and makes these cute little mice and characters in his book. And when I taught first grade, that was my favorite author study unit was we would always create. Kids would create their own little mouse. So one day I was thinking and I was looking at all my drawings of these watermelons and I'm just like, oh, what else could I do? And then it dawned on me, why not go there?
Speaker 1:So it was so much fun to create. Yeah, it's so cool, and so that's what you've done. It was with it's like paper, yeah. Yeah, talk a little bit about that, because I think that idea, that process was, is so creative and and the way that you you even capture, like the background, and I'm like how is she even doing? I, I don't know it.
Speaker 2:I don't know it just blows me away so we most of the illustrations were just with regular colorful paper that you would buy somewhere like Michael's. I'd actually hit up Michael's at the very beginning. They were having a sale and I was like this is perfect. So I stocked up on just you know, the usual colors of paper and I started just laying pieces out. So what I would do is I would cut out all the pieces to make a character or a background or something like that, and then I would lay them out on the ground and kind of position everything the way I wanted it to. And I, honestly, some of them I didn't even glue together, I just laid the pieces together and then I would take a picture with my phone and I would upload that to Canva, so then I could actually use it digitally alongside the words that I had already written because I had the words at this point were done. I did the words first and then the illustrations.
Speaker 2:But the fun part was, once I started making these little characters out of paper, making backgrounds out of paper, I started thinking like, well, I probably don't need to stop at paper. So I started. You know, my kids would be at school during the day, my husband would be at work and I would be like running around the house looking for like in our medicine cabinet. I would be grabbing like balls and using those for clouds, and I tore pieces of aluminum foil to make a watering can for one of the. I used some packing paper from one of my Amazon packages one day and like wrinkled it to make the the ground and it's just like really anything is possible and it might look very basic while you're making it, but once you get it into that digital format and you put it with the words, it all comes together and it was so fun to see it is.
Speaker 1:It's so. It is so fun to see and I think kids are gonna love it, and I I already have so many ideas about how teachers could use this book and how media specialists and and people different people could use it. And one of the things that comes to my mind and that's like I'm jumping ahead of myself, but you again, you're like you just triggered that part in me. That's like this would be such a powerful activity to do in a maker space and then they could either recreate things, recreate settings or recreate like, do a retelling, but they could also construct like a solution for Wally, because I want you to talk about that too, because Wally is a worrier. So, like, how did you come up with? How did you come up with that?
Speaker 2:Well, I remember when I was a first grade teacher and we would go through writing workshops and teach the the whole art of writing. One of the main messages I shared with my students was write what you know like, write something familiar to you, right? You know we did a lot of personal narratives and you know, if it's familiar to you, it's going to resonate with other people. And I am a worrier. I've been a worrier since I was a kid and, of course, just as I've gotten older, my worries have changed and gotten bigger. And now that I have kids of my own, I see that same side of them. I see the things that they worry about and I see the anxiety that creeps in with little things and big things. And I decided to take my own advice. And you know, I know what it feels like to worry and I know what's helped me and I know what I tell my kids when they're worrying, and I really just wanted to share that message with more people more children, yeah, and more adults, because it's.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for my copy to come, because I have been in this struggle of worrying about my son and um and we're having an issue right now and he actually texted me yesterday and told me to worry about myself, which was very rude, and I'm like listen, you're my son, I'm your mother, I will always worry and care about you and love you for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:So there's nothing you can say. You can't tell me to stop worrying. It's impossible when it comes to you and you make it so hard, but anyway. So I need Wally and I need all the friends that are involved in the story, where they give them, pick me ups and help, give them point lessons, teach them lessons about worrying, and so I need that little reminder which I think is so powerful especially. I think it's powerful at any time of the year, but at the beginning of the year, when kids are so worried about school and classrooms and I mean even testing season would be a really good time to read the book. I think I really think anytime, because I think kids have worries constantly. But, like, what a great time for the book to come out right at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, if only it was that easy, that you could just if only stop worrying was a good enough piece of advice. Yeah, you know, a lot of our problems would have been solved a long time ago. So, yeah, that was really important to me too is to give universal strategies that aren't just going to work in certain moments. They're not specific to certain times of the year, like back to school, but they can be used during back to school when you're feeling that anxiety and all of the changes that cause all of those worries, all of those worries, and so my hope is that kids will see these and internalize them enough that they can use them during any year when they're well.
Speaker 1:I think that's what makes a book so special is that there are strategies, and the way that they're told through the veggie characters are is like it makes it so relatable. And you're like this oh my gosh, I can do this, like you feel like you can do it, even even if you've been in counseling forever, and they're telling you the same kinds of things. You're like, oh my gosh, it just took these veggies to help me understand this really well. So I think that's the one of the most powerful parts of it and I think, and just the perseverance of you know, wally, and I don't know, I just I love that part. Okay, so how do you think? I mean, we've already talked a little bit about it, but how do you think teachers can use this book in their classroom? Or were you thinking school counselors and you know people that are working on social and emotional learning? Or, you know, did you have a specific group of people in mind?
Speaker 2:You know. So when I was, I wrote this book specifically, obviously for kids, but thinking about who was going to be the ones ultimately purchasing this book and getting it into the hands of kids, I was thinking of three main groups. I was thinking of teachers, and the book is for kids. I would say age four to eight would be ideal. Of course we can go a little lower or higher depending on the kid. So teachers, parents and then guidance counselors and I think, like you said, I think a back to school read aloud would be absolutely perfect. If you're reading it at the beginning of the year, I can see it being really powerful, being able to refer to those characters and those strategies throughout the year. So it's not just like a one and done read aloud, it's something that you can reference for however long you want in the future. Actually, I created some free posters that teachers can use in their room or guidance counselors can use. You know how sometimes classrooms have like a calm down corner.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, they can go, and they're the cutest posters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so they're so cute and have some visuals where they can remind themselves like, okay, I can, I can take soup breaths. One of my characters is Teddy tomato and he teaches the reader and the little veggie friends in the book how to pretend like you're inhaling the aroma of a bowl of soup and then slowly blowing out so that you're cooling it off. And it's been really cool this week. One of my friends here at home who read the book, Um, she texted me the other day her daughter was playing softball and she was pitching and she said Sophia is having a really hard time pitching right now and I just called out to her on the pitching mound take, Teddy tomato, soup breaths. Yeah, Sophia just like smiled and started like taking deep breaths. And I think that's what it's all about is being able to grab onto those real life in the moment feelings and being like hey, now would be a great time to think about some strategies, and you can see it really working.
Speaker 1:But I feel like that's so much again more powerful to Teddy. You know soup strategy. Rather than take deep breaths, you know it's, it just makes you cause, it connects back to the character and you're like, oh yeah, okay, this is what it looks like, this is what I can do and this is how it helped Wally. So, yeah, I think that, I think that is, I love that. Okay, so you, you made the posters and then I think you even didn't you even do like some like response kind of things, yeah, like response, yeah, yeah, and I can share the link with your listeners.
Speaker 2:So it's all on one site. It's ErinWatersEDUcom, slash Wally, and if you scroll down the page there's a tools section so you can sign up to get a free set of Wally themed bookmarks for your classroom. You can sign up for those posters that I just talked a little bit about. And then I also created a set of worksheets and a set of slides that go along with the book so you can use them before reading and after reading, and those, I would say, would be great for guidance counselors, because I can see them taking them into a classroom and having the visual and then kind of a follow-up activity with the worksheet.
Speaker 1:Even STEM teachers and media specialists. I can see. I can see this. I mean I would have done it in my second grade classroom, Like it would have been something that we were going to do and having that, that support of those things in the book. Is there any way? Way, any. Does it have like a page where it like links to that or shit, or it does?
Speaker 2:okay, good yeah, so on the inside front cover, depending on, there's been several versions floating around, but the the the current final version on the inside cover has a little qr code that you can scan. That will take you right to the page that I was just talking about I was that's so smart, because so many authors do not do that.
Speaker 1:And then teachers are like I don't know what to do with this book, like, because sometimes it doesn't just come naturally the ideas. But I think, opening the book, I'm like I have like a million ideas, but that's not how some people think. And having that, having those like resources just ready to go, that is such a benefit. I don't can't get comfortable in this chair. Um, that's such a benefit and so like such a support that people are like and you know, as a, as a former media specialist, the bookmarks. I would have been all over the bookmarks because kids love bookmarks. They're constantly asking for bookmarks amazing, I mean and I.
Speaker 2:I love a good bookmark and the asking for bookmarks. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean I love a good bookmark and the set that I have on my site. There's a black and white version that kids can color themselves or there's a full color version that teachers can print off and laminate if they want like a class set in the classroom.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean, teachers are already thinking about so many different things every single minute of the day. So any way that I can make their experience with WALL-E easier and more enjoyable, like I'm all for it. So if anyone has any other good WALL-E ideas, I'm happy to throw them up on that site. But I think that those will at least be a good starting point for anyone who's introducing WALL-E to their classroom.
Speaker 1:I think so too, and I think that they're going to absolutely love it. It is a beautiful book. Well done Job, well done, okay. So one more question how did you navigate your own feelings of worrying while creating the book?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, that's a great question, because I think it has been the classic case of do as I say, not as I do. You know, there it's. It's been a very good moment of self-reflection for me because, like like we've talked about before, like I have you know, I I'm someone who is very in touch with my emotions. I am self-aware, almost to a fault sometimes.
Speaker 2:So writing this book was, I want to say, kind, kind of therapeutic for me in a way, because it made me realize that maybe I don't have my worrying under control as much as I thought. So it's been interesting because there have been moments where you know it's usually at night, when you're laying in bed at night, and one night I was like, what am I doing? And I started going through the different Wally coping strategies and I actually started using some and it was a really powerful moment for me, kind of like hey, this isn't isn't just for kids, it's for grownups too, and it's it's a constant work in progress. So I think that it's impossible to ever tamp down all the worries, but if you can at least alleviate the feelings that you feel in your body and your brain when those worries start to creep in even just a little bit. It's a win in my book, yeah absolutely, and it's, and it's perfect.
Speaker 1:I mean it would be a great Sunday book for teachers to a Sunday before the Sunday scaries kick in here, I got to get my Wally book out and give it a read Truly truly. It's great. Erin thank you for doing this, thank you for sharing, and I wish you so much success, because I think this book is I do, I think it's truly beautiful, and also I cannot wait to find out if there's going to be more with the other characters too.
Speaker 2:I think there might just be, so stay tuned, all right. Thank you so much, karina. I really appreciate your support and I hope that. Wally finds his way into lots of classrooms and laps this year.
Speaker 1:Me too. Oh, such a so much fun, so great talking to Aaron. So Wally's story is adorable, but it's also real. Our kids need to feel safe. They need to feel like they're in safe places and have safe places to land.
Speaker 1:Books give us a way in. If you haven't yet read Wally is Worried, which you probably haven't because it just came out today, but by the time this comes out, you could have read it, so you can grab it on Amazon. I'm going to drop the link below and I'm going, and you can use this to. I'm also going to drop Aaron's link so you can grab some of the extra freebies too, and you can use it to introduce your class to a watermelon with big feelings and a big heart. And also, this is a great story to put in your sub tub, with that free day of sub plans that I gave away a few weeks ago. I'm going to give those away again because this book would go perfectly with that. And if you need a low stress way to plan for those days off, don't forget that free sub plans are for you. You'll be glad to have it when you need it. Until next time, sweet dreams and sleep tight.