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The October Teaching Slump

In the land of teaching, October has quite the reputation. The October Teaching Slump. The October Blues. The month of disillusionment. 

In October, the excitement of beginning the school year has passed. The jaunt from summer to Thanksgiving seems more like a forced march than anything else, lacking breaks to catch a breath. And the once-theoretical workload of lesson planning, grading, and managing behavior is at an all-time high. Our best laid, well intentioned plans have a way of going awry. It’s no wonder educators hit a wall!

If you’re feeling discouraged, burned out, tired, know that you’re not alone. Even the most seasoned teachers—in both the classroom and homeschool space—experience disillusionment this time of year. The October slump is just part of the teaching cycle; it doesn’t mean you’re not cut out to be a teacher!

Here are a few tips to mitigate the October blues. You got this!

  1. Put your energy where it matters. All of our teaching tools, routines, and curriculum plans are there for a reason—but we also have to think about the actual needs of our classroom and students. Take a moment to analyze which teaching techniques most resonate with your students and which ones seem to glance off. Put your energy towards what works. Leave behind what doesn’t.
  2. Take care of yourself. Teaching can be all consuming. There’s always more work to do! That’s why it’s important to spend some time taking care of yourself, be it through exercising and walking, eating nourishing foods instead of relying on caffeine, and prioritizing sleep. Everyone, both students and teachers, seem to get sick in October. Do your immune system a favor and carve out moments for yourself!
  3. Notice the little wins. October isn’t usually when we see the fruit of educating our students (which contributes to that feeling of endlessly pushing a boulder up a hill). This is the time for planting seeds and watering sprouts—the harvest will come. In the meantime, celebrate the baby steps your students take in becoming readers, writers, and thinkers. Little wins are there when you look for them!

Stay strong. Educating the next generation isn’t easy—but nothing worthwhile ever is!

~ Claire S.

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Announcing: Reveal 2026 is LIVE

“To create art is to have courage.

“If art is a window to the soul, then artists take a great risk every time they pick up their pencil, throw clay on the wheel, or brush a white canvas with that first stroke. Because to be fully known is to be vulnerable—both to love and rejection. 

“Yet somehow, despite this risk of hurt, you can’t find a time when humans haven’t created art. This suggests that for centuries and millennia, people have found that the risk inherent in creating art is worth taking. Because maybe, just maybe, baring your soul to the world is the only way to become who you are meant to be, the only way to become radically vulnerable and authentic and brave. The only way to become radically human.”

So begins Reveal 2026. 

For those of you who are new to Blackbird & Company, Reveal is our annual student writing and arts journal. We believe writing is an artform that is meant to be read by a reader. Therefore, we aim to get our students’ writing into readers’ hands!

This year’s theme is ideas. In Reveal 2026, you’ll see a collection of writers and artists who dared to share their ideas with the world. Expressing one’s inner, most vulnerable self isn’t easy. It’s a tenacious affair, an affair that sometimes involves dragging ideas onto the page kicking and screaming. I couldn’t be more proud of all of our students who found the courage to share their world with an audience. 

 

And good news—Reveal 2026 just went to press. You can order your copy of Reveal HERE to share your student’s work with family and friends, or to catch a glimpse of what our Blackbirds are up to. 

Lastly, a big thanks to everyone who helped these students take flight, from our teachers to parents, to our supporters and cheerleaders. You’re making a difference!

~ Claire S.

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Shakespeare’s Yellow Leaves

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare begins like this:

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold

Sara’s beaded leaf is inspired by Shakespeare’s falling leaves. This is a wonderful time of year to help our students add to their fund of knowledge.

Why are leaves different shapes and sizes?

Why do leaves change color?

What exactly is photosynthesis?

All great questions to ponder in fall.  Step outside to observe fall in your neck of the woods. What do you discover about the leaves of October?

Download Six Breaths of Fall on printshop to create your own response to Shakespeare’s yellow leaves. Be sure to send us a photo of your work.

Click through to explore some more ways to leaves, here and here and here.

 

~Kimberly

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Combating: “I can’t!”

Fall for me is a time to reminisce on back-to-school. What motivates a student to engage in the work of learning? Long ago I wrote an observation of my youngest son engaging in one of our Level 2 Integrated Literature and Writing units.

What stood out to me as a mom and an educator is the fact that, after writing his way through the book, Søren created a culminating project that was conjured up in his very own imagination. Creativity is NOT extracurricular. Creativity combats the “I can’t” grumbles.

With our approach, each book is read and explored over the course of four weeks. During the fifth week, students develop a creative culminating project with options that provide a variety of ways for them to demonstrate deep understanding of the book. Students not only get a chance to demonstrate their originality, organization, clarity of purpose, and critical thinking skills, more importantly this culminating endeavor will allow them to show off what they have learned in their own, uniquely creative way.

 

~Kimberly

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By Hand is Beautiful

“Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” is a tone poem by Claude Debussy that he later re-worked into a performance for two pianos. The work, as most of Debussy’s compositions, is impressionistic in nature. Think Claude Monet.

This week, for our fourth breath of fall, our resident art and music teacher, Master Taylor, offered this piece of copy to inspire BIG ideas. “Prelude to the afternoon of a faun,” when I explained the project to him, was the first thing that came to mind. It came to him lightening fast.

“My goal is to give my students the tools to assist in bringing their ideas to life through their art.” ~Master Taylor

There is a mechanics to art—a way to hold the pencil and how much pressure to apply. We are taught small finger movements to handwrite. In art we are taught to use the arm to assist in drawing a line as opposed to fingers. Wrist and arm movements can assist in making bigger lines. Learning the mechanics of art is skill learning. Music too involves kinesthetics. So does writing a word, a phrase, a sentence, even a poem. Taylor believes in slowing down or in his words, “settling down” into the process of art-making. As a teacher, his goal is to inspire students to make beautiful, important work that is authentic.

Notice the connection between writing and the arts?

According to Taylor, “S l o w i n g  down, doing less, doing it well. This all takes time. It’s all important. It’s your work.  It’s your idea.  It matters.”

Taylor here, for Six Breaths of Fall, did what Taylor does best, was inspired by music. Once upon a time Taylor wrote all of his compositions by hand. His idea here was to copy the first note of Claude Debussy’s composition, the jumping off place this week, and to photograph it on a pice of music he composed by hand with a pencil. Beautiful, right?

Six Breaths of Fall is an opportunity for students of all ages to be inspired by snippets of poems and music and visual art to craft and compose their own tiny ideas.  We want your work to be yours. We just want to support you in building your toolkit to get your idea where you want it to be. The possibilities are endless. Click through to get started!

 

~Kimberly

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But I am done with apple-picking now.

Robert Frost writes this line in his poem, “After Apple-Picking.” The speaker in the poem narrates their weariness after a long day of apple-picking, drifting in that in-between state of being not fully awake or asleep. Even the rhyme scheme reflects the speaker’s disorientation; the end rhymes are all over the place! This poem is like a pool of crystal clear water: you can gaze deeper and deeper into its depths, and you might even catch a glimpse of yourself staring back.

Take a few minutes to read “After Apple-Picking” at the end of this post. I promise it won’t disappoint.

Frost’s line, I am done with apple-picking now, serves as inspiration for this week’s Autumn Artfest prompt. One of our wonderful Blackbird & Company artists, Kelly, found her imagination sparking at this line. She took the apple-picking idea and ran with it to create miniature beaded red apples—so cute!

Need a refresher on what exactly Autumn Artfest is all about?

Each Monday morning, we will post on the blog a prompt for you to ponder and respond to, along with one of our artist’s renditions as an example. Every prompt is a quote or homage to a published poem, painting, or musical piece about Fall. Collect your creations in our downloadable chapbook, Six Breaths of Fall. Embrace the Autumn spirit!

Feel free to vary artistic mediums each week. Here are some art forms to consider:

  • Poetry
  • Painting – watercolor, acrylic, etc.
  • Drawing
  • Microstories
  • Embroidery
  • Beadwork
  • Music composition

Send in photos of your creations to our social media or email. We would love to highlight YOUR breaths of fall on the blog!

~ Claire S. 

 

After Apple-Picking

 

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

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Why do the white beeches in fall sigh?

Great question…this sounds like a query that can only be answered in the form of art! Week two of Autumn Artfest finds us ready to paint, draw, sew, compose, bead—in other words, ready to create. 

This week’s prompt is inspired by German painter Christian Rohlf’s White Beeches in Fall. He completed this expressionist oil painting in 1910. Yet over 100 years later, we still find the painting’s warm, vivid hues and remarkably colorful white trunks to capture the same Autumn of today. 

Here’s the poem this prompt sparked in me:

Why do the white beeches in fall sigh?

 

Worn out by

winter’s ice cold glare,

spring’s manic joy,

summer’s weighty breath,

we beeches have strength

in our white bones

for nothing

but a soft sigh—

and a resigned fall.

 

Need a refresher on what exactly Autumn Artfest is all about?

Each Monday morning, we will post on the blog a prompt for you to ponder and respond to, along with one of our artist’s renditions as an example. Every prompt is a quote or homage to a published poem, painting, or musical piece about Fall. Collect your creations in our downloadable chapbook, Six Breaths of Fall. Embrace the Autumn spirit!

Feel free to vary artistic mediums each week. Here are some art forms to consider:

  • Poetry
  • Painting – watercolor, acrylic, etc.
  • Drawing
  • Microstories
  • Embroidery
  • Beadwork
  • Music composition

Send in photos of your creations to our social media or email. We would love to highlight YOUR breaths of fall on the blog!

~ Claire S. 

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Happy birthday, James Harriot!

All Creatures Great and Small

James Alfred Wight (who used “James Harriot” as a pen name) lived a life worth remembering. You might know James Harriot as the author of All Creatures Great and Small, which happens to be one of my all time favorite books—it’s hilarious, poignant, insightful, and beautifully written. Harriot finds significance and value in the smallest of moments, showing us that we don’t need to travel far and wide to experience the good life. Living deeply starts in the mundane, in the now. All that to say, All Creatures Great and Small is a must-read.

Back to the man behind the book, James Alfred Wight, called “Alf” for short. While All Creatures Great and Small is labeled a memoir, only about half of its content are from Wight’s life. The other half is fiction. 

On his birthday, here’s a glimpse of Wight’s life you might not have caught from reading his books:

  • After German air raids targeted his home cities, Wight enlisted in the RAF (Royal Air Force) in 1942 to serve as a pilot during World War II. He was a skilled pilot but was discharged a year later for health reasons. Going from the RAF to the Yorkshire countryside is quite the change!
  • Wight started writing in earnest after twenty-five years of working as a veterinarian, in his fifties. For the first three years of his writing journey, Wight struggled with rejections. After a publisher advised him to write in the first person and take a more autobiographical route, he struck a tone that resonated with his readership and the rest is history.
  • Wight’s books have sold over 100 million copies! His first six books have all sold over a million copies. 
  • In the book, Siegfried Farnon brought James into his veterinary practice as a partner. Siegfried is portrayed as cantankerous, eccentric, and loveable. Siegfried is based on Wight’s business partner, Donald Sinclair, who fits the bill for this characterization—which might even be a toned down version of what he was like! Wight’s son recalls that the reason Sinclair was “such an eccentric character was that he didn’t think he was.” At first, Sinclair took offense at his characterization in All Creatures Great and Small, saying to Wight, “This book is a test of our friendship.”

If you haven’t had the chance yet, crack open All Creatures Great and Small, a high-school, Level 4 read (Check out the book and guide bundle HERE). I promise you won’t be disappointed!

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Best Laid Plans

When it comes to back-to-school, sometimes even the best laid plans turn chaotic like an enormous pile of fallen apples!

And sometimes we hit back-to-school and realize our planning has, well FALLen short. Bad pun, but fitting.

When it comes English Language Arts—writing specifically—there is no getting around the pencil. It’s the best technology, after all. I’ve never hit fall as a teacher, without expending significant energy encouraging my students to do some heavy lifting!  Heavy lifting of the pencil, that is. I engage in this work because lifting the pencil is absolutely everything.

Learning to write is a long journey. We know this to be true. And, on this journey, there is NO better technology than the PENCIL.

When it comes to literacy, much of the exceptional work that your students will accomplish is subjective in nature tied to their ideas.  As students read great stories, they make observations. These observations will inspire ideas. Cataloging ideas in writing—pencil on paper—over time builds confidence, develops voice, and promotes perseverance.

The PENCIL enables student writers to engage the brain in multisensory ways. When we write we 1) HEAR the idea stirring in our mind; 2) We SEE the letters and words we are forming; and 3) We engage HAND-EYE coordination.

So here, as back-to-school toes its way into  October, reinvigorate your “best laid plans” by introducing the pencil as the star of the show

Here are some ideas to inspire PENCIL work:

Mastering the art of handwriting fosters the ability to concentrate, to contemplate, and to communicate confidently. Download our FREE handwriting worksheets here and here. Cursive is not only a beautiful art form, it is a skill that promotes concentration.

 

~Kimberly

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The Bird Who Sings at Night

While she formally published fewer than a dozen poems, Emily Dickinson wrote eighteen hundred over the course of her lifetime. The main reason more of her work went unpublished is largely because she chose not to. Instead, she left  her lovely poetry to the world in her own way—by hand.

“By hand” has grown scarce in education and culture at large. How many of us sculpt or knit or compose music, sketch in a journal, craft a poem—with pencil on paper? Too few!

Pencil, scissors, needle thread, canvas, fine paper, and a BIG idea. This is how I began to tackle the first page of Six Breaths of Fall—download for FREE here and join the making.

The Autumn Artfest is inspired by ephemera—a wonderful word to get to know. The definition we are looking for is: a publication designed to be short-lived. Here I return to Dickinson whose ephemera persists. Her little made by hand books, her fascicles, are collections of carefully curated poetry written on meaningful scraps, stitched together, and kept safe in a drawer—forty fascicles containing 800 individual poems!  Emily Dickinson’s work elevates the meaning of ephemera. Later in her short life, she began creating poems on recycled envelopes. There are in excess of 50 of these little gems. The prompt this week is a singular image one such envelope poem [A 320 (Fr1478A), ca. 1878]: One note from / One Bird.

Inspired by this nugget, I began stitching a little songbird. As I stitched slowly, the bird emerged and I once again thought of Dickinson, poem 314 (all her poems are numbered as she did not title her poems):

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

 

I started with a sentence: Sun slowly sinking the sky her feathered song rises to greet the gloaming.

Next comes line break:

Sun slowly / sinking into sky, / her feathered / song rises to / greet the gloaming.

Sun slowly

sinking into sky,

her feathered

song rises to

greet the gloaming.

Of course this little poem is a nod to wonderful Emily and I will copy its final draft in pencil as my first entry into the Six Breaths of Fall tiny chapbook.

Now it’s your turn to get started. I can’t wait to see what you share. Send photos via our social media or to our email.  Let’s create together ephemera for the 21st century.

“Let’s strive together to part with time more reluctantly, to watch the pinions of the fleeting moment until they are dim in the distance & new coming moment claims our attention.” ~Emily Dickinson from the Preface of Envelope Poems.

 

~Kimberly