Books: FUNding Knowledge
Campfire Tip #9: Read Books! I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to grow up in rural Virginia because I’ve read Bridge to Terabithia. I know how veterinarians assist cows giving birth because I’ve read All Creatures Great and…
Pencils Are Magic
Campfire Tip #8: Pencils are the Best Technology Sometimes, I get a piece of student writing that sounds a little off. No misspellings, perfect punctuation, stays on topic—but something doesn’t seem quite right. No matter where I look amidst the…
Gems of Art and the Section 5 Project
Campfire Tip #7: Encourage Creativity If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want some syrup to go with it—but if you give a girl an octopus book and some thread, she just might make the most gorgeous pillow you’ve…
Print Shop for Elementary and Middle School
Campfire Tip #6: Offer Independent Writing Skills Practice Print Shop is a Blackbird & Company New Year Resolution! Print Shop downloads offers an awesome opportunity to set your students into independent writing activities. We are building a collection of downloadable…
Print Shop for Primary
Campfire Tip #5: Inspire Independence Print Shop is a Blackbird & Company New Year Resolution! So what is Print Shop for Primary? It’s an awesome collection of downloadable Discovery activities designed to engage students, Kindergarten through 2nd grade, in focused,…
Blasting-off an IDEA
Tip #4 IDEAS Motivate Writers Writing is an art form achieved via a series of steps: 1) It all begins with an IDEA. Without an idea, the writer will simply stare at the blank page. 2) Once there is an…
Why We Publish Student Work
Campfire Tip #3: Writing is a Gift Hopefully you’ve heard about Reveal by now, Blackbird & Company’s annual anthology of student work. But do you know why Reveal is so important? Why we talk about it every chance we get? It…
Revealing a Giveaway
Campfire Giveaway What would make our annual virtual campfire gathering even more wonderful? An actual campfire, of course! Enlist your students to choose a favorite polished draft from this year’s work from Blackbird & Company curriculum, submit the work to…
New Year / New View
Campfire Tip #2: Be on the lookout for wonder! When my oldest son was a toddler, I watched him make his way toward our back yard fence toward a knothole. I watched to see what he would do. Funny thing,…
Editing Student Writing
Campfire Tip #1: Empower Students to SELF-Edit We’ve got you! Head over to Print Shop to download for FREE our student self-editing checklists—Writer’s ChecklistLevel 1, Writer’s Checklist Level 2, and Writer’s Checklist Level 3. These resources are designed for use…