Author: BBCo

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A Reason for Handwriting

About a dozen years ago, a friend shared with me that she decided to bypass teaching her children the art of penmanship. Her children would jump straight to keyboarding: “This is the computer age. Cursive handwriting is archaic. Why do the work?”

What about beauty?

When I pressed her, my friend agreed that handwriting is an art form. She simply did not see the value of her young children expending effort to master an art form that would not be useful in college a decade or so in the future. This was my first encounter with creative illiteracy.

Mastering the art of handwriting fosters the ability to concentrate, to contemplate, and to communicate confidently.

Let’s face it. We are a distracted people. We are technology-centric, and our children are at risk. We are obsessed with digital signals that tickle our attention.

But we all, somewhere deep down, appreciate ideas that are beautifully inked by hand. I, for one, long for this personal touch. Of course, there are countless typographical fonts that mimic hand-written text. We download them for free. Sometimes we even pay for these fonts. But can the illusion of written-by-hand really fill the void?

Technology is here to stay. We all need to be technologically literate. I’m connected to my iPhone because I value the many benefits this technology offers.

But what if a technological world without the balance of human artistry is shrinking individuality?

My eldest son is a composer. Until recently, he composed all his pieces by hand on archival paper. When he was a college student, his professor pulled him aside and praised his melodic compositions that are equally beautiful to the eye. However, while he crowned Taylor one of the last “by-hand” composers, he suggested that purchasing a notation program such as Sebelius would be imperative. This is not because the program will make Taylor’s work easier, but because most musicians who will read his work have never played music that is handwritten and the foreign individual nuances are challenging to interpret. Taylor purchased the program, but assured the professor that he will always begin the process of composing by hand hoping to, in the end to also be known for the individuality of his hand on the page.

This got me to thinking, how many times do children come to me and say, “I can’t read cursive.”

Handwriting is an extension of the writer’s voice. Lettering by hand—whether it’s verbal or musical—is beauty, is unique voice. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien encouraged one another as writers, still, their voices on the page are vastly different. Voice is the fingerprint of the writer, that one-of-a-kind something that no two writers have in common.  Our handwriting is a beautiful extension of that voice. We are known by the whisper of our loops on the page.

Remember, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” That’s Hemingway, of course, from A Moveable Feast. I want to add:  Ink your one-true-sentence by hand onto paper in the most beautiful way you can!

Try carving out fifteen minutes a day to compose one true sentence, but not just the truest sentence you know, the truest-most-beautifully-handwritten sentence you know!

Begin with these things in mind:

Choose the right writing implement and the right
paper. The feel of the pencil or pen on the page is a personal choice. The balance of resistance and flow has to be just right. Take time to explore the options.

Consider grip and posture. While I don’t believe there is a single right way to grip the writing implement, I do believe the pressure of the grip matters. The grip should always be relaxed, not cramped. The posture should be upright, comfortable, and the arm should rest on a table so that the arm directs the stroke, not the wrist.

Beautiful handwriting begins with beautiful lines. Remember, our alphabet is a set of symbols developed by human beings to represent spoken sound. The symbols, from an artist’s standpoint, are arbitrarily looped and curved lines that
represent the spoken word. There are many letter forms in the world. You might even add one of your own!

Be the tortoise. Slow handwriting is nimble. Slow and steady is non-chaotic. Fast handwriting is mindless, awkward. Fast and rickety is chaotic. Consider the metaphor. An investment of time practicing the art of handwriting will generate much more than beautiful strokes on the page.

Click through to access our FREE lettering by hand activity to get the tradition started.

 

~Kimberly

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Imagine a Big Idea: A State Quilt

The big idea was to study our state in detail for one full school year, learning its basic geography and all the state symbols. There was no pattern. We just designed it the way we wanted it as we journeyed through our study. We decided to spell C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A on little pillows to create a relief effect. Each letter was cut out of different fabrics that had Wonder Under applied to the back. Different embroidery stitches were used to embellish the ironed on letters. The pillows were then hung on little safety pins.

Along the left of the quilt are laminated hand drawn watercolored state symbols—state rock, flower, bird and so on. Our children were delighted to safety pin each symbol randomly.

The middle of our quilted California is made of muslin and is a quilt all it’s own with two sides and batting in the middle. Using a large state map as a guide, major features like deserts, mountain ranges, valleys and lakes were either applied using fabric or paints.

We had children bring in photos of themselves from different places in the state or just photos they had taken in different places. We cut them small, then laminated them and attached them with safety pins. All the quilters painted California poppies and signed their names.

For the finishing touch we used bright yarns to tie the quilt together at random spots. We entered our geography unit in the Mid-state fair and won a first prize ribbon!

It’s pretty obvious that a project like this takes hours and hours. Really, there was no rush… except the deadline for the fair!

 

~Sara

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Meet Kimberly

Me?  

What if I told you that the day my grandmother gave me a dinky white portable typewriter I made each of my family members mailboxes for The Friday Night Flash out of a Captain Crunch cereal box? What if I told you that I can still feel the tin keys, hear the comforting “plunk, plunk, plunk” as I whiled away childhood? What if I told you that the day the typewriter came into my life was the day that I became a writer?

What if I told you that when my grandmother died I stumbled upon a box that contained a sizeable archive of those newspapers that continue to twitter, “imagination matters” … what if I told you this is why I decided to set off on an incredible journey into the world of education?  

Would you believe me if I told you that I became a teacher at a tag sale, transformed 100-square feet of our flat roof bungalow to a one-room school house, invited 7 families to join my Guild, and delivered my third child a week before the first day of class?

 True story.  

Fast forward…  

I spent a good deal of my life , nearly 30 years, bringing shape to the Guild Method. This is where i centered my work. Though we eventually moved from the shelter of flat roof bungalow anymore, our guildschool was a cluster of cozy spaces where children engage in their important work. Having retired Waterhouse Guild, I often pause to soak in the memory of that glorious hum. Founding academics on creativity was at times chaotic, often loud, but it affords our students ample opportunity to bring shape to their ideas. And this is worth every bit of the swirling motion, every single elevated decibel!  

I suppose you’d say I’m a visionary, the founding director of an academic amalgamation.  

I’m a wife— 37 years and counting. I’m the mother of four amazing adult children.

Long ago I received my bachelor’s in biological psychology and fine art, graduate training in clinical art therapy, and later in life chased down an MFA in writing.  My book, Habits of Being: Artifacts From the Classroom Guild recounts the many observations and ideas that sprang from schooling my children and others.

I’m a founding partner of Blackbird & Company and love bringing shape to the curriculum we offer.

I’m often puzzled when asked, “How do you keep all those plates in the air?”

My response? “It’s either that or stand barefoot in shards of porcelain.”

Guess I see life teeming with possibility. I’m with the Red Queen on this one, “Why sometimes I’ve believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

So that’s me.

I suppose it all boils down to that dinky white portable typewriter.         

——————————-

Kimberly Bredberg has been an advocate for reform in education for nearly four decades. She is a founding partner of Blackbird & Company Educational Press, an ELA curriculum expert and author. Her book Habits of Being: Artifacts from the Classroom Guild is currently in its second printing. Her writing and visual art students have won numerous awards, have been recognized on the regional and national level by the Scholastic Alliance for Arts & Writing, and have been published in international writing journals. Kim has been recognized nationally for her role as an arts and writing mentor. The California resident, mother of four, long ago received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara in biological psychology and fine art, graduate training in clinical art therapy from Loyola Marymount University, and received her Master of Fine Arts in  writing from Antioch University.

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On Looking Closely…

The habit of observing is habit worth developing—a habit of being.

Observation of simple objects is the best way to begin your Observation Journal—think shell, spoon, marshmallow,  apple. Begin this activity in kindergarten and continue through 12th grade! Create an annual binder of student observations—The Observation Journal. These will become terrific keepsakes.

And getting started is easy as 1, 2, 3…

One.

Trace the edges with your pencil follow along with your eyes.

Two.

Begin your sketch, following the outline edges (very  s l o w l y). Let your hand “see” all the curves and bumps that your eye sees as you look back and forth from your drawing to the apple. Don’t rush. Making a connection between the eyes and the hand is a slow motion exercise.

Three.

Simple observational drawings can be embellished with a wash of watercolor.  Always paint from a puddle, never directly from the pigment tiles. When creating a wash of color for a red apple, Sara reminds us that the red is not the red directly from the tile. “Red in nature is complex. Make a puddle of red and add a tiny drop of green.” It’s the same process for an orange pumpkin, add drops of the complimentary color of the object into the prominent color—a splash of blue— to achieve the natural complexity of the object’s color. Here is an advanced observation where the pinecone color is actually a blend of yellow with a touch of purple!:

A good way to get your students ready for a complex observation like this pinecone, is to engage them with simple hand held objects from the kitchen to the natural world. It is also a good idea to engage students with already flattened objects as demonstrated in the photos below:

Furthermore, have students copy drawings of artist’s. This activity helps them develop observational skills and while learning how great artists use lines.

Once the observational drawing is complete, encourage your students to do some research on the object that was observed, date the entry and add it to the Observation Journal.

As students  complete observations, encourage them to engage in clean-up—putting away materials and washing brushes and paint trays. Encourage them to reflect on what was gleaned. It’s likely that what was gained is far more than art, far more than science.

Developing the skill of observing is a habit of being that invites us to imagine possibility.

 

~Kimberly & Sara

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Meet Sara

 

One of my earliest memories of fourth grade is sitting in class listening with rapt attention to my teacher reading a mystery story about a castle. Somehow the title is long forgotten. Oh, how I wished she would read out loud all the time and skip math lessons. The other strong elementary school memory is my hours in the awesome school library. I became a library assistant, filing cards and learning the Dewey Decimal System. The best part was handling all the books and challenging myself to read authors like Madeleine L’Engle and John Steinbeck. Books took me away from my troubles at home and on the playground. Books were like a vacation for my brain!

Fast-forward a few decades to my kitchen table where a mass of local teens hangs out quite frequently. I’m on about my third conversation with different kids about the importance of reading and I just can’t believe another young adult (two years from voting) is telling me that “they just don’t like to read,” or “I just don’t care to read.” I’m thinking to myself, this is a crisis in the making.

I home schooled my two children who are well into their teen years and I’m really glad we spent LOTS of time reading and discussing history and current events from the beginning. I see now how it was vital to developing their critical thinking skills. So many of their peers don’t have this ability, worse yet, they think the decision to be a reader on par with deciding that they don’t like spinach! This is scary to me for obvious reasons.

Would you believe me if I told you that everything I know to be true about education in America has come from my observations of illiteracy creeping into the population?

I decided to home school my children long before I had them. It was a miracle that I found Kim at a tag sale where we began discussing education. Out of this conversation came many glorious years educating our children together and developing a philosophy of education. We schemed and planned by night the curriculum and art projects we would do with the kids all the while making sure we tackled stacks of great books. That decision has paid rich rewards.

Now that my children are busy in their teen years, my daughter a freshman in college, my son a junior in public high school, I am listening intently to that world in which they revolve. I see how sensitive these years are and how much teens are still affected by their parent’s long ago and present actions. My heart is with them as they try to make sense of this world. I want to gather them together as much as I can to encourage them and love them.

So, that’s who I am and what I’m about these days.

———————

Sara Evans embraces an individualized philosophy of education believing that each child’s raw potential is a worthy investment. For this reason she homeschooled her two children for 10 years as co-director of a cooperative micro-school dedicated to cultivating individuality in students. Through the years, Sara has facilitated workshops in the arts for children of all ages. She considers working with children a privilege and loves to see their talents blossom.  Sara is a Blackbird & Company partner and author, contributing ELA expertise in the area of curriculum development and editing. She is passionate about cooking, gardening, and is an accomplished artisan who spends much of her time creating works in various media including, rug hooking, ceramics, and mosaics. A graduate of the Color Style Institute in Menlo Park, she received her Bachelor of Science in Child Development from Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo. 
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Write a Summer Sink Monster

LittleGuy

As summer sizzles her sunshine, be inspired by a delightful collection of clever images at our Write it…! board on Pinterest to write a poem or two. Write about some whimsical or fantastical creature from your imagination. Begin with sentences that you break into poetic pieces.  Remember to “show” the reader concrete sensory details. Take inspiration from the creativity of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and William Blake’s “The Tyger.”

Example-

Sink Monster

This one lived beneath the kitchen sink:

When I was a child, I could hear its

Subterranean gurgling from the pipeline guts

Of the basement. I could have sworn I saw

The tip of its fin peek out from the drain,

Or heard the snap of its jaws, with its many

Monstrously tiered teeth after turning the faucet off.

~Constance

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Q is for Quilt

I love it when the weather turns cozy.

Cozy means quilts and hot cocoa.

But you don’t have to wait for winter to enjoy a quilt.

Quilts make a terrific summer fort.

Quilt making is wonderful community, no matter the season!

When I’m wishing for cozy, I think of Q, and my favorite quilt stories come to mind:

The Keeping Quilt, by Patricia Polacco
Stitchen’ and Pullin’ by Patricia C. McKissack
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
Luka’s Quilt by Gerogia Guback

So read a book, quilt a Q, and embark on a literary tradition!

~Kimberly

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Growth Mindset: Just Keep Swimming

The next time your student gets tackled in the I CAN’T zone, share a story of your own.

Yesterday I was shopping at Trader Joes, contemplating an almond milk purchase when a good friend approached me and said quite simply: “Why don’t you make your own?”

This suggestion set off a cascading thought process in me that went way beyond the situation at hand. All in a millisecond I thought about the many times I had thought about making my own, the videos I had watched, and the numerous blog posts I had read. Still I had never “pulled the trigger” so to speak. Now, I’m smart enough to know we all have “stuck” areas in our lives. There are things we aspire to in life, but we often get overwhelmed OR SOMETHING and are stopped in our tracks. Who knows all the things that hold us back. I suspect the problem has myriad roots.

Anyway, back to Trader Jones, what happened this time is that my friend continued: “Just soak 1 cup nuts (any nuts) overnight in water and in the morning drain the nuts, add 3 cups of water in the blender, and blend to liquify.”

There was something in that moment. I think it might be that the process was presented so simply to me that I thought: “Okay it’s time to do this. I have almonds. I have water. I CAN do this…!”

And so I did. I added a pinch of salt and a dash of vanilla too. And the result was delicious—you don’t even have to strain it if you don’t want too! There were no additives so MY almond milk tasted so good!

I think sometimes the moment becomes right to make a move into the stuck zone. It’s so easy to over complicate things in our minds, to Pinterest an idea to death! In the case of almond milk, you know, make it all pretty with mason jars and ribbon and chalkboard labels,etc,etc, etc. when the true beauty is in the MAKING (and consuming) of the scrumptious drink itself.

It felt SO good to FINALLY just do it! And the icing on the cake? This is going to save me a ton of money!

So back to education… What if I had failed? Would I have learned something? YES! and I would have had strengthened my tenacity to try in the process. I would have learned some right and wrong strategies. I would have been learning.

Thing is, a growth mindset is NOT always easy. Students are NOT always successful when they try, but they ALWAYS learn something that is useful. Something that will help them in the future when they are faced with something new to learn. So the next time your student shrinks into the “I CAN’T” zone, share a story of your own, hum Dory’s song, and just keep swimming!

PS By the way, my friend said the roasted unsalted hazelnuts from Oregon at Trader Joes makes an incredibly good milk. No fixed mindset here… I’m making some!!

 

~Sara Evans

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Y is for Yarn

Want to know what it means to spin-a-yarn?

Read Extra Yarn by Mac Bennett, illustrated by Jon Klassen and you’ll soon see.

Winner of the Caldecott, this contemporary fairy tale is bound to become a classic. Annabelle reminds us that curiosity, determination, and generosity are three ways to thwart a villainous archduke! So, like Annabelle, grab a ball of yarn and imagine the possibilities.

PS Be sure to watch the story. It’s delightfully animated!

 

~Kimberly

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Ars Poetica for April

A poem about “what-is-a-poem” is an Ars Poetica.

 

Sometimes a poem is as small as a list.

Sometimes it encompasses all the words we need.

Sometimes a poem is restless buttons  in a jar.

But always,

a  l  w  a  y  s

a poem

is translucent,

waiting to unfurl

its magic.

 

~Kimberly Bredberg