Tip Number 7.

Purchase Well!

Can you believe it’s that time of year when we teachers begin planning forward?

There are two ways to purchase your complete English Language Arts materials for the coming 2024/25 school year:

One.

Our Grade Level Collections are carefully curated to give you everything you need for the school year when it comes to English Language Arts. At each level we’ve included six CORE Integrated Reading & Writing units, plus an appropriate collection of APPLICATION materials (vocabulary development, mechanics, style, non-fiction research, composition, creative writing).

Two.

Curate your own collection! Follow the link to our How to Buy guide and click through to build your own! A complete collection can be built with items from each of these categories: A) CORE Integrated Literature & Writing (Phonics, Reading, and Writing for K and 1st grade),  B) APPLICATION: Grammar, Mechanics & Style, and C) APPLICATION: Research, Composition, Creative Writing.

From Purchasing to Unboxing, we’ve got you covered!

Tip Number 6.

Play!

Last year, around the campfire, we shared ideas about adding playfulness into your kindergarten and 1st grade routine. This tip bears repeating!

Kindergarten

Once students understand that each of the 26 letters of the alphabet have unique sounds that can be combined to represent the words we speak, they will be off and running! But this is just the beginning. Use the Hatchling Phonetic objects and corresponding deck for matching games. Utilizing the moveable alphabet, the possibility for “play” is endless. Children will quickly learn that they can check their work by simply flipping the phonetic card. That’s right, the  teacher is built in, and this helps students confidently enjoy their important work.

1st Grade

By the time students have reached 1st grade, they are confidently reading and writing simple three and four-letter short vowel words with consonants, consonant blends, and digraphs—cat, mug, splat, chin, this, shop, and more. Again, utilizing the moveable alphabet, set up opportunities for students to independently practice the new phonics introduced each week, matching objects to cards and spelling the playful way. Children will have a longer attention span for this activity that is familiar from their kindergarten year. But even students new to Hatchling curriculum, will quickly catch on to the fact that they can check their work by simply flipping the phonetic card.

Play is an opportunity to practice new academic skills.

Play is an opportunity to foster independence.

Play is an opportunity to grow confidence.

I truly hope your students are not afraid to ask questions, that they know they are learning and learning well. I hope they can use all the tools available and add more. I hope they find their mentors and tribes of support. I hope they have fun and play with sounds and words. I hope they treasure stories like you. I hope you both know that they are teachers too!

After talking with many parents I have put our list of extras down that we have shared over the years, that you can incorporate while doing this early learning or remediation work. Please keep checking back to our website for blogs, videos freebies and more added extras. We are making the guide for you!

Extra Playful Tool Kit

Gross Motor

• Have your student write the letters they are learning outside with chalk, or paintbrush and water. It’s okay to use big fun strokes.
• Have your student watercolor or paint letters -tracing a piece of paper.
• Have your student collect stones, sticks or leaves and make the letters with materials.
• Have your student write the letters in the dirt with sticks.
• Put the card with the word or sound out on the floor or tape to the wall. Have your student hop or run or dance to the sound you say.
• Have your student pick an animal and act like that animal while going to tag the card.
• Go on a scavenger hunt around the house collecting or naming items that start with the sound you are working on.
• Have your student make the shape of the letter with his body and make the sound.
• Have your student throw a bean bag on a letter sounds or words you have learned—use the cards from Hatchling or put words on bigger pieces of paper.

Fine Motor

• Glue buttons or beads onto a big block letter B written on a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper.
• Engage in a beading activity with pipe cleaners.
• Draw wavy or zigzag lines for your students to cut, following the lines.
• Use an eyedropper and colored water to drop into little soap saver suction cups.
• Find pictures in magazines that start with different sounds, cut, and paste.

I Spy Sounds in Books while Reading

Find pictures in books that start with the sound(s) you are working on: “Do you see anything on this page that starts with a ___ sound?” Give your child time and patience. If your child finds a sound but does not start with the sound you asked for respond in an encouraging way, praising the sound they did find. If the sound was “p” but they found “b” you might say: “Wow, you found a picture with the “b” sound,  “ball” begins with this sound! Now ask if you can have a turn too. You can model finding the “p” sound. Look I found something round too, “pizza” starts with a “p” sound.

Moveable Alphabet tips and games

• The letters in the Moveable Alphabet are organized in alphabetical order to help students process as they see, feel, touch and do. Ask your student to find the letter (or letters) that makes the ___ sound. You can do this weekly after learning sounds, to practice and reinforce. Always have your children find the letters to match sounds and to also put away the letters when possible.
• Have your student take the letter sound you are working on or reviewing out of the moveable alphabet box. Have your student walk around the room or permitted area and put the letter in front of any object that starts with that sound. You can play this same game with first, middle and last sound. See game below.
• Put out letters of moveable alphabet in a sequence on the table and have letters that are missing. Have your student fill in the missing letters (examples: a__ c,  d e __,  g __i,  j  k  __).
• Ask your student to find the first sound in a word. For example, try the word hat (this list can be the same word cards you practice with Hatchling Volume 1 or Volume 2).
• Ask your student to find the middle sound—this will be the short vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u) in closed syllable words. Closed syllable words have 1 syllable, one vowel, and are closed in at the end by a consonant or consonants. For example, the word “dog” or “stand” are closed syllable words.
• Play the Magic “E” game. Spell out any of the following words in the lid of the Moveable alphabet:  cap, car, spar, her, them, kit, bit, pin, twin, rod, nod, hop, glob, hug,  cub. Have your student add the Magic “E” to the end of the word and read with the long vowel sound.
• Play “My Mistake” with your student. Once your child has completed Volume 1C, CVC words (consonant/vowel/consonant words), you can play with the words you have learned and add new ones. Using the CVC objects, spell words and make mistakes. Ask your students to check your words and ask if they are correct. If they find the mistake have them change the letter to make it correct. For example, beside the object “bag” you spell “bog” with the Moveable Alphabet. Have your student correct your mistake.
• Play “What New Word” with your student.  After completing 1C and 1H in Hatchling, Volume 1, see if your student can make new words out of words they have learned. For example, they learned the word “bag” in Hatchling 1C. How many words can they make if they take away the letter “b” and replace with a different sound (gag, hag, jag, lag, mag, nag, rag, sag, tag, wag, zag)? Let the words be nonsense or part of a longer word or names. Have fun and be playful. The point is you want your student to identify the correct sounds.

Have fun… the thing is, when it comes to PLAY and learning, the possibilities are endless!

~Clare

Never be afraid to ask questions!

You can teach your children.

You can teach them well!

We’ve developed tools to help you and your students succeed.  However, when it comes to early English Language Arts, the vast array of terms that describe the scope and sequence children must assimilate on the path toward literacy is daunting. There are 44 phonemes (sounds) in the English language, but there are around 250 graphemes (letters or combinations of letters that represent single sounds)!

Tip 5

Ask questions!

As mentioned in my last post, having a mentor and a tribe of support was a wonderful part of my homeschool journey.  These are people who encouraged and cheered me on! These are the people I peppered with questions along the way!

We hope that you will consider us part of your tribe.

Anticipating your questions, we’ve developed a thin little Teacher Helps to accompany both Hatchling, Volume 1 for kindergarten and Volume 2 for 1st grade. Inside this volume you read all about the world of early ELA—phonics, sight words, journalling, spelling, and the scope and sequence of literacy! When it comes to questions, we encourage you to read through your Teacher Helps and to take a really thorough sneak peak into the student journals. Hopefully this material will answer many of the questions that you have about beginning and sustaining learning. But you will have more, I certainly did! Read again, underline, write notes in the margins.

Below are four questions as example of the many answers embedded in our Teacher Helps for Hatchling.

ONE.

Why study phonics?

On page 9 in our Teacher Helps, we explain why phonics. Phonics is a method of teaching students to read and write (notice we mention these together, at the same time). Phonics is a method of teaching students to read and write by helping them hear, identify and manipulate phonemes. We start at the beginning the A, B, C’s when learning to read and write. Letters represent the sounds we speak and hear -this is phonemes! Phonics is an organized, logical system but the English language has 26 letters of the alphabet when combined in various ways create the 44 sounds or phonemes. In Latin/Greek phone means “voice or sound”. The written letters are called Grapheme’s. In Latin/Greek graph means “to write or written”. When referring to the name of a letter we put the letter in quotes, “a”. When referring to a sound a letter makes we put the sound between two slopping lines, /a/. With so many letters and combination of letters it is best to teach sounds over names.  This takes time, practice, play, visual and hands on materials.

TWO.

Why spell through phonics?

On page 12 in our Teacher Helps we explain why spell through phonics. During the primary years (1-3 grades) students will spend a lot of time and effort understanding how to encode print words using the English alphabet. Encoding is essentially a writing process. Encoding breaks a spoken word down into parts that are written or spelled out. Decoding on the other hand breaks a written word into parts that are verbally spoken. Our approach moves the student from the concrete, familiar objects to teach phonemes easing them into the complicated abstract world of spelling.  Students get insight into the world of language, wowed that sounds make words, words combine to make phrases, phrases combine to make sentences and sentences combine to make passages.

 THREE.

How do I know if my student has mastered a skill?

How to review, practice, and check for understanding while learning these specific phonemes is listed on page 10 in the Teacher Helps. How to review High Frequency Sight Words is on page 13. We talk bout why handwriting is an essential skill on page 14, when it comes to early literacy. The art of handwriting promotes focus, fluency and flourish. The work of writing something down allows students to focus on form itself, enlisting executive function and promoting purposed attention. This focus transfers to all other learning. The work of writing something down strengthens fluency, fluency allows students to express ideas. Being imaginative and curious begins in our minds. Writing something down helps the student to flourish by elevating ideas and reinforcing the work of idea making.

 FOUR.

What about pencil work?

Some students are not ready for the pencil right away. Some students need to remediate old habits. Students should first work with the touch and trace cards and the sand tray learning and practicing the strokes of each letter. Once you have built up this skill, slow focused strokes and stamina you can move to pencil and paper. We add in line and maze work as well. This may seem unnecessary but it will help students see the effects of pressure, position and speed on their line. A tip is to have the student change colors each line, which will help the student slow down and foster focus. For the line work in Volume 1, or the maze work in Volume 2, consider using transparent paper so your student can use the mazes more than once and increase their fine motor skills. On p.19 we give tips to painless or interactive journaling. Try to make writing playful, asking questions, listening, making observations, discussing, taking a “my turn” and “your turn” approach to learning.

~Clare

We never planned on homeschooling. Then suddenly our first child was getting closer to school age and the big question hung over our heads, “Where does she go to school?”

We were in our first small starter home, the last one we could possibly afford left in Orange County. We were not in a good school district. Let’s just say our local school was rated quite low. We thought of the private route and started doing research. That led to us to multiplying tuition times 3 children (our two sons following our beautiful daughter) and it seemed like a plan we could never sustain. On top of these realities, my husband and I were both quite aware that our daughter was going to learn differently—dyslexia ran in our family and we were noticing some of the signs.

Suddenly, paying for private school we couldn’t really afford and having my daughter away from us for 7 hours a day starting in kindergarten didn’t appear like the right plan. At this time, one of my best friends from childhood discovered homeschooling. Next thing I knew, I was ordering books, attending talks and learning about homeschooling. Up to this point I had never heard of anyone who homeschooled and it was quite a mystery to me.

What I did hear over and over from truly everyone was: “Read to your kids!”

This was no problem! Because I loved reading to my kids, this was an easy task.  I loved snuggling, reading aloud, discussing stories, making up stories, acting out stories, listening to stories while we drove. I was told if you read to your kids, they will eventually read. I read and pointed out words and letters, yet, my daughter did not read. Not only did she not read, but she couldn’t even sing the ABC song correctly, let alone identify the letters!  I would consistently sit in groups of other homeschooling moms who would say, “Don’t worry it will come.”

During this time, I met my mentor, friend, and eventually boss through another homeschooling parent. My mentor ran a private school and also had developed a unique language arts curriculum and ran her own publishing company—Blackbird & Company. During this part of the journey I learned why phonics is important. I learned terms like phoneme, grapheme, digraphs, CVC words, syllables and so much more. I think I knew these concepts on some level. I had attended public school and had done quite well in my elementary school years, I was even placed in the gifted programs. But like most people I don’t remember being taught to read.

In the homeschooling world, this concept of “being able to read” always boiled down to a natural process.

This is, of course, partially true. And maybe it is completely true for some children, but for others this “natural process” needs little coaxing. I felt rather lost and ill-equipped. Since this time, I have met many homeschooling parents at conferences. What I love about my job is that I feel I am just another mom talking to other moms about tools that worked for me. Many of the moms I talk to don’t know what a phoneme or grapheme is, or  what CVC even stands for (consonant, vowel, consonant)! I am honored and grateful every time they ask. It is not a sign of intelligence, or an indicator that you will be a good teacher if aren’t familiar with these terms.  I think quite the opposite is true.

I think the best teachers aren’t afraid to say, “I don’t know!”  The best teachers readily say, “Can you help me?”

Blackbird & Company curriculum was a breakthrough for me and my children because it broke down the concepts and helped me understand these new terms via hands-on-tools. This led me to becoming Barton Trained, to a study of the Orton-Gillingham method, and a deep dive into the foundational terms that are the foundations of the English language.

This month we will begin to post videos of phonics tips and terms to accompany Hatchling, Volume 1 learning. In these videos we discuss terms you may not recognize and give you tips to support your student in early learning—especially when a student may need a little coaxing! We are adding pages of terms, extra words to work on, and extended lessons to accompany our materials. Videos for Hatchling, Volume 2 will follow late winter, early spring. Our beautifully simple, yet full, Teacher’s Helps is, of course, included in our curated Hatchling kits. Our videos will expand on the tools provided, allowing you to learn right along side your student.

When I met my mentor, I was so overwhelmed and everything felt so complicated. What Blackbird & Company curriculum did for me was take me back to the basics and kept it simple. We started learning what was important—all the right terms—together, slowly and well. You can too!

Tip 4

Learn the terms.

Stay tuned for more Campfire Tips!

~Clare

Victor Hugo’s words were always in eyeshot when I was raising and educating my children:

“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.”

September is just around the corner.

It’s time to start sketching out a plan for next  year—yes, NEXT year!

And we’re here to help.

Tip Number 3.

Planning Leads to Follow Through

Winter officially began December 21st. Spring will arrive March 2nd with summer on its heels!

Fall will arrive in the blink of an eye!

Now is the perfect time to begin thinking about the journey forward. As you get into the rhythm of winter, looking forward to spring, stretch your sights just a wee bit further toward the fall of 2024/25 and begin to outline for the coming school year! Begin by taking a peak at next year’s curated Grade Level Collection, or, if you are creating your own collection, make sure you choose both CORE and APPLICATION materials to round out a complete ELA course of study.

Here’s How:

1. CHOOSE 6 CORE Integrated Literature and Writing Guides

2. Choose APPLICATION materials according to your student’s grade or skill level.

Skills are presented systematically from Phonics in the primary years toward Vocabulary Development (through high school). Grammar and Punctuation are thoroughly introduced in elementary, moving toward a four year exploration of Rhetoric in upper elementary and middle school.

Research Writing is introduced in late primary early elementary, and continues on through the first year of middle school. Creative Writing is formally introduced via Storymaker and again in the middle school three units exploring the art of poetry.

Compositional Writing, exploring essay form, is covered over 5 units beginning in middle school and culminating in the second year of high school. In the final two years of high school, students will put everything together that they have learned and practiced in the Long Research unit.

Stay tuned this week as we begin to focus on supporting and planning for Primary—kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade.

No TIP today, rather, a reminder and an encouragement!

While reading through our Blackbird & Company ELA Benchmark materials, I was awestruck.

Just to hold in my hand a concise stack of pages detailing what a child will learn over their childhood—just in learning to read and write—was both a testimony to what it means to be human and to the powerhouse that is the human brain. Let’s take, for example, the first thing on the list. ”Holds book right side up, turns pages moving from front to back.” We have all seen a toddler holding a book upside down, pretending to read. It’s really a small miracle how one day something just clicks in their brain and they know to turn the book around.

When you think of all the tiny parts of language arts coming together over the span of a child’s early years, it can seem like a daunting task to be the teacher.

How will I hit all those small pieces?

Having two adult children, it’s fun to reflect back on those years and realize how many of the bits and pieces naturally came to my children (at different speeds, of course). I didn’t actually have a checklist of all the small parts (thank goodness or I might have freaked out). Don’t get me wrong, we had our big bumps, especially my son, who did a stint of ELA remediation at Linda Mood Bell. But, it is amazing, each child’s capacity to learn to decode and encode language while growing a love for good books and becoming motivated to share their unique ideas. I just felt this moment of extreme gratitude for what it means to be human, gratitude that all us educators are in this rich vein of motivating young writers to eventually raise their voices in the wide world.

Keep pressing in! The work is worth it!

I’m so pleased to introduce the newest member of the Blackbird & Company team. I’ve had the privilege of working alongside Mrs. Unruh for the past dozen years and am delighted that she will bring her enormous heart, her wisdom, and her many talents to serve you all—our wonderful customers—on this journey of educating! Welcome Cathi!

~Kimberly

We find ourselves one week into the new year, shifting and slowly moving out of the holiday hustle and hush into… fill in the blank. 

Over the years, I’ve had many different reactions to this season.  The chill of winter is present, but the promise of new life with spring growth is just around the corner.  We are supposed to feel a sense of newness as we embrace fresh resolutions and the new hope of change ahead.  As a homeschooler, it can be a time where you feel bogged down in quagmire—in the middle of the school year, looking at a stretch of 5 or 6 months before you get to cross the finish line and call the year done!  You may be looking at how dreadfully behind and unaccomplished you feel as you move into this second half of the school year. 

A serious change of perspective is needed.  Guess what?  What you are doing is not about THIS school year, it is about a life-long process of learning, growing, layering, stretching, strengthening, gleaning, inquiring, absorbing…caring.

The wisdom literature reminds us, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed”  (Proverbs 15:22).  Victor Hugo, of course, echos this truth:

“Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.”

So here is the advice from one who crossed the Finish Line, homeschooling four children some 14 years ago:  

Now is the time to start looking into curriculum choices and learning pathways for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. 

Now is the time to look at what you are doing and consider changes as you move forward to best inspire and encourage your student. 

Now is the time to shore up what is weak and strengthen what is thriving. 

Making choices now will gift you the time you need to be prepared and inspired as you appoint the path that will enact the most growth in the next leg of your homeschooling journey.  Be encouraged.  You are not stuck in the middle, you are walking on a pathway that is way longer than this year.

I have homeschooled my own children, worked in various capacities for a homeschooling academy, taught classes for a homeschool network where I counseled, advised and coordinated, and eventually worked alongside Mrs. Bredberg as a co-director utilizing  Blackbird & Company curriculum with students at our beloved hybrid school, Waterhouse Guild.  Did I do it all right?  No way!  But the years of experience have taught me much about this process of mentoring children, especially those sitting at our own kitchen table. I am privileged to be able to offer you advice and hopefully help you along your way as you homeschool your own children.

So, Happy New Year! 

The journey does not stay the same, but the pathway continues. 

I look forward to walking alongside you here with Blackbird & Company. 

Let’s walk this path together.

~Cathi

“Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.”

So said Abraham Lincoln.

“Four score and seven years ago…,” Abraham Lincoln crafted 272 words to form his “Gettysburg Address”—272 elegant words to heal the grieving, and bridge the rift between North and South. Abraham Lincoln was not only the benevolent President we all know and love, but he stands head and shoulders strong among the greatest of writers. “The Gettysburg Address” took only two minutes to deliver to the weary crowd on November 19, 1863, and was destined to become one of the most important documents in American history. He harkened back to liberty, to equality, and to freedom, echoing the Declaration of Independence. And he reminded the nation of the great goal of abolishing slavery — “… a birth of new freedom.” How did this man who, at best, attended school about one year of his life, and who never attended college, accomplish this great feat? Abraham Lincoln took ownership of his education. Lincoln was an autodidact. He read voraciously—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Goethe, Shakespeare, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Aesop. He read Longfellow and Emerson and Butler and recited their poetry aloud in the woods according to lore. He read Hume’s History of England. He read Thomas Paine, abolitionist Moncure D. Conway and humorist Petroleum V. Nasby. Abraham grew up observed the world around him. He listened. He cared. Abraham Lincoln cared about learning. Though he never attended law school, Abraham Lincoln received a license to practice law after passing a rigorous oral examination. He became our 16th President and fathered us through Civil War. Before he was assassinated, Lincoln crafted his “Second Inaugural Address”—700 eloquent words denouncing slavery, offering grace and sympathy toward both sides.

Here in the 21st Century, we can be that teacher who inspires an Abe Lincoln attitude toward learning. Literacy is the amazing human ability to read and to write and to speak and to think. Learning and practicing bundles of ELA skills eventually lead to competency. Standards, whether set by particular states, or Common Core, simply map out these skills.

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” — MALALA YOUSAFZAI

We, like Malala, believe that the act of reading and the art of writing and thinking can change the world. So how do we accomplish this great goal? We believe the answer is to simplify.

So let’s refocus!

Here in the 21st century, the most important thing to keep in mind is that Abraham Lincoln took ownership of his education. The best encouragement we can give our students is to empower them to engage in the act of reading and the art of writing. However, let’s keep in mind that neither reading, nor writing (for that matter, not thinking or creating either) happens by chance. Literacy is achieved only by small steps toward the goal. Work works. But literacy will not ever be authentically achieved via a checklist of skills. We teachers will do our students a service when we understand the skills involved are best achieved when we encourage our students to be present, to take ownership of their important work. Understand the ELA standards, teach explicitly as needed, and guide your students consistently through our CORE and APPLICATION units according to their individual ability and grade level. Much of what the standards call for will be covered (and then some) as your student presses into this work. English Language Arts goals fall into the following five broad categories and are further broken into recommended skills for each area:

1. Foundational Skills for Reading and Writing

2. Reading of Substantial Fiction and Non-fiction

3. Language Conventions of Grammar and Style

4. Speaking and Listening and Thinking

5. Writing of Ideas

Tip Number 2.

Document observations along the way!

We’ve created worksheets for you to make notes monthly of student growth, and to track your observations of ELA benchmark mastery and particular skills needing a bit more attention. Tracking observations not only enables you, the teacher, to offer simple explicit reminders along the way, but also to be encouraged by student growth.

Happy FIRST Day of 2024!

For those of you who are new to Blackbird & Company, and those who are seasoned users, pull up a log, and gather round the campfire!

We humans possess an enormous capacity to enjoy and enact language.

During the month of January we will offer tips to help YOU, the teacher, guide your students on the path to becoming exceptional readers and writers. Becoming literate is a lifelong journey—we must inspire children to delight in this important endeavor.

Tip Number 1.

Track the journey!

Take a moment to look back on the academic milestones your students achieved in 2023. You will likely be amazed! We’ve created checklists of benchmark skills to help you create a record of progress.

The following are BIG picture checklists to help you assess annual student growth as a reader, writer, thinker, and creator. Over time, following our methodology, your student will become confident in the following ELA (English Language Arts) benchmarks. As you assess your student’s work, you will be pleased to discover mastery in these areas. Keep in mind, mastery does not ever mean these benchmarks are a thing of the past, but rather, part of the active heart and mind of the student. There will be considerable overlap year after year, and you will observe maturity within a given skill over time. Use check marks to indicate the skill is being utilized by the student.

ELA Benchmarks: K–2

ELA Benchmarks: 3–5

ELA Benchmarks: 6–8

ELA Benchmarks: 9–12

Catching a glimpse of the tremendous growth that happens as we engage our students in the act of reading and the art of writing is just the encouragement we teachers need at the start of a brand new year!

Happy New Year indeed!