Category: Unplug

Posted on by

Pumpkin! Pumpkin!

Pumpkins are everywhere this time of year! Time to harvest, right? Following are three ideas to help you “switch it up” with pumpkin activities that will surely keep the fall mood stirring!

ONE.

Read (or listen to) a pumpkin story, or two! How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, is a wonderful story that integrates math and inquiry.  We love this story so much that weve included it in our Hatchling for Kindergarten Collection! Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson, photographs by Shumel Thaler, is a terrific book that takes the reader on a beautiful book through the life cycle of the pumpkin. Continue the pumpkin science by observing two different pumpkins from various perspectives. Discuss discoveries. Talk about color. You might even compare colors to paint chips from the hardware store! Count the lines. Compare weight. Observe the stem and the bottom of the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkins open. Count the seeds. You might even pick up a sugar pumpkin and make a pie or some muffins! The possibilities are endless.

TWO.

Stitch a pumpkin. This one was made years ago for little hands to learn the running stitch. The pumpkin is a simple drawing cut onto fabric fused with Wonder Under, a material that allows the design to stick with heat to the background fabric. The outer frame, the bordering crooked strips of fabric, are optional. Without these, no sewing machine is necessary. Of course, if you have access to a sewing machine, by all means create a border!

Begin like this:

  1. Have your child look at and draw a pumpkin.
  2. Trace elements of drawing to the select fabrics prepared with Wonder Under—stem, body, inner shapes.
  3. Cut out the shapes, place on the background, and heat with an iron to adhere to the background.
  4. If you have a sewing machine, run a stitch around the pumpkin to add strength. If not, run a stitch by hand.
  5. Provide your child with a needle and embroidery floss in bright coordinating or contrasting colors to decorate.=

THREE.

Try to yarn bomb a pumpkin! Several years ago, I bought a white pumpkin and a skein of orange yarn. I set out scissors, glue, and the yarn in a basket next to the pumpkin. Together with my four elementary and middle school aged children we created this fun activity, one length of yarn at a time. Pant the pumpkin with glue, cut a length of yarn to reach from the stem to the underneath of the pumpkin, and attach, one by one. This slow, contemplative work is a terrific activity to set up during October!

 

~Kimberly

Posted on by

Speaking of Apples

Cézanne said: “Everything is about to disappear. You’ve got to hurry up if you still want to see things.”

What does he mean?

I think he means: “LOOK!”

This little painting by 9th grader, Kingsley, was accomplished during Session 1 of Pages online live! Under the expert tutelage of Mr. Taylor,  inspired by the colorful still life paintings of Paul Cézanne, in five happy, peaceful hours over the course of five weeks, this student painting took shape.

How did she accomplish this beautiful feat?

By engaging in the slow work of observation.

The skill of observation enables us to recognize, slow down, perceive, decide, appreciate, and ultimately, to know.  Observation engages all the senses. Yes, we can see with our hands. And it is through the senses, that we will make sense of the world. But don’t take my word for it, Da Vinci, master of observation says it with eloquence:  “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”

Art making is academic.

 

~Kimberly

Posted on by

Three Ideas with Fall Leaves

It’s fall! Leaves are turning. Following are three ideas to help you “switch it up” with fall leaf activities! While reading the following ideas, listen to Vivaldi, Autumn from The Four Seasons performed by the Netherlands Bach Society. This will surely get the fall mood stirring!

One.

Listen to a fall leaf story, Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert is amazing place to begin! This one is also a fall leaf favorite.

Read a fall poem.

October by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with a
methyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

Two.

Stitch a leaf. These leaves began with a leaf walk. Grab a basket and collect some freshly fallen leaves. Look up and, if possible, pluck a a few fresh leaves too. Once home, observe the different shapes you collected. Trace your favorite onto a piece of felt. Felt squares can be found at your local craft store. The felt we used was purchased on Etsy from an artisan who dyes beautiful colors with natural materials. Once the leaf shape is drawn on the felt, cut out the leaf. Now stitch the veins with matching embroidery floss using a simple running stitch.

This project is a really fun throwback to a classic that my sister-in-law, Tracey, beautified with unexpected bright fall colors and simple organic shapes! These leaves, once cut, are unfolded and embellished with a hole punch (all terrific fine motor for little ones), then veins are drawn with colored pencils. String these paper leaves for a decorative fall garland. Collect them in a little basket. You might even use these leaves as a little greeting card!

Three.

Haiku are the little powerhouses of the poetry world! They are a fun challenge involving the best of word play, mixed with a little finger counting to get the syllables just right! Here’s a brief “Haiku 101” to help you get started:

1. Haiku poems consist of a three-line stanza that has a total of 17 syllables written in the following pattern:

Line 1: 5 syllables
Line 2: 7 syllables
Line 3: 5 syllables

*Slight variations in syllabication is appropriate as this helps the poet maintain the “one thought in three lines” rule.

2. Haiku poems are observations of nature, often making reference to the seasons.

3. Haiku poems are like photographs, which capture moments in time. A  “haiku moment” describes a scene that leads the reader to a feeling.

4. Haiku poems were originally written as introductions to longer works of poetry and should be written as one thought in three lines.

Consider this simple, but lovely, fall haiku written by the Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho:

In the autumn night,

 Breaking into

A pleasant chat.

Ready to write? Try crafting a leaf haiku. Use photos in this post to inspire.

~Kimberly

Posted on by

Around the Campfire: Kitchen Tales

Let’s talk kitchen literacy.

That’s right.

Think recipe for fun and for learning!

In the kitchen, reading and writing and thinking is delicious!

Once upon a time we had a little wooden step stool in our kitchen that my four would climb up to help me stir up whatever was cooking. In the kitchen, everything your little ones are learning is applied—counting, fractions, addition, subtraction, reading, writing, sequential thinking and so much more. In the kitchen, children experience the complexities of chemistry. They will witness right before their eyes the difference between a mixture and a compound. They will watch matter change right before their very eyes! Like magic, chemical reactions lead to yummy treats!

Let’s talk kitchen words: measure, cup, spoon, knife, pan, water, sugar, butter. Encountering words in the realm that they belong is an excellent opportunity for students to put their language arts skills to task. I used to make moveable labels on 3 x 5 index cards and place them on kitchen nouns. After cooking (and clean up!) I would have them draw pictures on the back of the cards so they could have fun reading and spelling words using the moveable alphabet. The kitchen list of words is endless and will provide your little ones hours of academic fun. One word that is very important in the kitchen is dozen. This wonderful word is also an important mathematical concept  introduced in kindergarten.

About a dozen years ago, Sara wrote her first post. She imagined cooking from scratch akin to educating a child. This brilliant extended metaphor rings true all these years later:

I believe every child is like a blank recipe card and that our job as educators is to teach them how to bring their unique spice to a bland world. Each child possesses a unique cabinet brimming with flavor. One might be like chili powder (which you really need to make a good pot of chili), another cinnamon mixed with sugar, yet another oregano (which gives a great background flavor to many dishes).

And she left us with a brilliant question:

What if our job is to challenge our children to explore the potential of their flavor? Let’s help our children develop their unique recipe for life. 

So this winter, let’s get cooking!

~Kimberly & Sara

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Around the Campfire: Slide of Imagination

The phrase “summer slide” is one of my pet peeves. This phrase (used for as long as I remember) describes the essential skills that are supposedly lost over the summer when children are out of school.

Summer is the time for hands in the sand, hikes on the mountains, digging into a city garden, swimming in the community pool, trips to the library. Summer is an extended time of experiential learning. And these experiences will provide fodder for learning all year long. These experiences will pay richly into your child’s fund of knowledge, the knowledge that sparks ideas. Think of summer as an opportunity to mostly unplug from electronics, to engage with nature, family, friends, community, and books!

Let’s talk learning loss. Being deprived of something is loss. When it comes to language arts, I’ve sadly crossed paths with scores of children struggling to write who have simply been deprived of the opportunity to imagine their ideas. Is summer the culprit? I think not!

Review Tip Number 2.

What is your BIG idea?

When it comes to writing: Form always follows function.

When learning an art form—and writing is an art form—the rule to follow is: form follows function. This means that language arts should not be approached or taught the same way that we teach math. We can not simply give our children a mountain of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization rules and expect them to compose their ideas eloquently. In this case we are giving children “form” (building blocks) without any concept of “function” (purpose). Function is key to using form effectively.

Without ideas, writing becomes a meaningless chore.

Before the pandemic, literacy levels were in decline. But global shutdowns  pushed close to 1.5 billion students out of school. And these disruptions gave us all an opportunity to see that perhaps our approach to teaching language arts is broken. It gave us an opportunity to make a change. Truth is, on average nationwide, 66% of 4th grade children in the U.S. could not read proficiently in 2013, seven years before the pandemic! And children who do not read proficiently, do not write effectively!

Lacking basic reading and writing skills is a tremendous disadvantage. But lacking the ability to value ideas, well, that is tragic.

Literacy not only enriches an individual’s life, it creates opportunities for people to develop skills that will help them provide for themselves, their families, and humanity at large. Literacy is the ability to read, write, and think in ways that enable us humans to communicate effectively and authentically. Literacy helps us make sense of the world.

Tip Number 3.

Slide of Imagination

If we are to use an education phrase, let it NOT be the “summer slide” or the “COVID slide”.

Please let it be the: Slide of Imagination!

When children engage with ongoing spelling lists, endless grammar exercises, and cookie-cutter writing exercises, they will become exhausted and disheartened climbing an endless ladder.

When it comes to writing an idea, at first, children (even adults!) might see the blank page and feel a little frightened, like getting on a two-wheeler for the first time. But with a bit of encouragement: “You can do this!” the pencil in hand will begin to fill the page. The climb up will always be UP, but the slide of imagination will never disappoint.

Try this writing exercise (yes, you):

Look at the photo above. What did the little girl think climbing the ladder to the top of the slide? What did she think when she reached the top and looked down? What was going through her head when the photo was snapped?

You are seeing blank lined-paper, right?  It’s not easy to begin, right? Is your imagination holding its breath?

  1. Sometimes, in this moment, I give my students permission to pretend!
  2. If I were in the room, teaching you, I might encourage you to dictate your idea so that your first draft would simply involve copy work. For reluctant writers, dictation is akin to training wheels.
  3. When students are really intimidated by the page,  I might offer a few “hooks” and let them choose how to begin. Here are some examples: At the top of the slide, she was so delighted by her favorite color that she burst into laughter.  Arms up, feet down, head back, big smile, you go girl!  She’s committed now! 
  4. Sometimes all it takes is getting a first sentence on board for the idea to flow.

Now it’s your turn. Write your idea. Write through all the stages: Idea brainstorming, first drafting, re-reading, editing, polished copy. And once you’ve completed this exercise, teach someone to write through the prompt. You can do it! You be a writing coach!

Encouraging your students to write their ideas is inviting them to climb the ladder into their imagination and slide into the art of writing joyfully.

Instead of worrying about catching up this winter, think about gathering around-the-campfire.  Around the campfire we warm up, roast marshmallows, make s’mores, sing songs, and best of all, we share stories.

 

~Kimberly

GIVEAWAY(S)

Enter to win an easy light up fire pit built for the backyard and beyond from our friends at Solo Stove – plus, a Blackbird & Company Yeti Thermos (2 total)!

ENTER TO WIN NOW

Posted on by

Snowballs + Leonardo for all!

One winter, long ago, we Blackbirds made a box full of snowball catapults to giveaway at a conference. When I came across a few remaining stragglers, I smiled to myself. “Just in time for December!”

So, I have have been a busy little elf recreating ONE HUNDRED catapult kits! ENTER TO WIN HERE & you might be the happy recipient of one of the 100 kits we have ready to mail off!

Of course, when I think “catapult” I think Leonardo DaVinci, polymath extraordinaire!  What a persona to consider as we stand at the dawn of a new year. A bit of history:

You, of course know, Leonardo Da Vinci was a man who wore many hats: painter, sculptor, musician, engineer, father of flight, medical entrepreneur.  But did you know that he was known to sketch mechanized throwing devices just for fun?

The catapult design, conceived and put to use many, many years before Leonardo, intrigued him.  And so he went to the drawing board to do some tweaking.

Da Vinci recognized a simple fact that was likely overlooked by most: Gun powder was not 100% dependable! It just needed a bit of tweaking. And so he set out to refine the tool.

Da Vinci concocted two ideas: the single arm and the double arm catapult. The mechanisms he imagined would enable an increase in the throwing arm speed with ease. Like many of his notebook ideas, there is no historical record of the single or double arm catapult being employed but there are small scale and large scale models that have proved efficacy. More importantly, Loenardo’s tenacity to put his ideas to paper continues to inspire innovation. And this is worth celebrating!

For this reason, we will giving away one  Leonardo DaVinci catapult kit in addition to the 100 Snowball catapult kits.

**GIVEAWAY CLOSED**

And may you be inspired.

 

~Kimberly ❄️❄️❄️

Posted on by

So much gratutide!

Fall is a cozy season. It’s the season of turning leaves ??, of imaginary forests and fairy stories, of bundling up with mugs simmering cider for long meandering walks, of collecting pinecones and spying animals readying for the long winter nap. Most of all, fall is the season of gratitude! And this means GIVEAWAYS!

TWO, to be exact…

ONE.

Recently we stumbled upon an amazing trilogy of board books created by artist and speech pathologist, Tabitha Paige, CCC-SLP designed to help little ones celebrate one of our very favorite things—words! These delightful stories will jump start the young child’s vocabulary and introduce them to early language concepts! 

Lessons include:

  • Spatial Words: Follow along with Little Fox as he plans a surprise picnic for his friend Owl in A Trip to the Farmers Market.
  • Quantity Words: Follow along with Little Hedgehog as he helps his friend Squirrel search for missing acorns in A Trip to the Forest.
  • Colors and Counting: Follow along with Little Rabbit as she gathers wildflowers to cheer up her friend Mouse in A Trip to the Wildflower Meadow.

We love that this little set that captures the magic of language and offers practical tips for this most important pre-reading stage. Mostly we love that these books do this the beautiful way! These stories are a perfect opportunity for older siblings to read aloud to younger siblings.

TWO.

Puzzles are a perfect way to snuggle in to the coziness of fall. When we stumbled upon this puzzle, we thought: “HOW PERFECT!” Celebrating two of our favorite things, words plus the best technology when it comes to writing—the humble pencil. This promises to be an activity the whole family (and extended family too) will enjoy.

XX GIVEAWAY CLOSED XX

Click here to check out our December Giveaway!

 

~From all of us at Blackbird & Company to all of you: So very thankful ???

Posted on by

Written by Hand

Writing with a pencil by hand is a foundational skill. But it’s also a beautiful endeavor. I have fond memories of learning to form the ABCs. This work was quiet, slow, and mysterious. Yes, mysterious. My grandmother, who raised me, wrote little notes by hand and left them in various places around the house to my great delight. Her hand was one of a kind, a lovely extension of her loving self.  It was not like any other by-hand note I’ve ever encountered in life. That’s the thing about penmanship. Penmanship is personal.

Sadly, digital teaching tools have pushed handwriting instruction to the back seat. But writing by hand is multi-sensory, connecting hand-eye coordination and memory. Writing by hand, the art of encoding language, strengthens the ability to read (decode) language. Writing by hand slows us down so that we might engage with and bring shape to our ideas.

This past Sunday, January 23, was the birthday of John Hancock—the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence. I can see his strong, courageous calligraphy in my mind’s eye. His is the one famous signature that my elementary classmates and I committed to memory. So it is fitting that here at the end of January each year we celebrate the art of handwriting connected to this larger than life signature!

So at the dawn of 2022, may you pick up a pencil, craft your very own John Hancock, marveling at each individual stroke that defines your hand.

Want to learn more about printed letterforms?

Take a look at our free worksheet: Typography 101

Typography 101

Posted on by

Da Vinci Summer IV: UNPLUG

Television from WaterhouseGuild on Vimeo.

Each poem is a one-of-a-kind collage of sounds that tickle the tip-of-the-tongue and a rhythmic hammering that sparks a tap-of-the-toe.

Poetry is a larger part of our world than we often admit. It’s the songs we sing, commercial jingles, rap, billboards, and YouTube. Poetry is headlines, Facebook, and blogs. Poetry is in great books and essays. Poetry is everywhere!

And so poetry is worth our while—worth reading, worth writing, worth speaking out loud, worth memorizing.

“Memorizing?”

This past winter, when I challenged my writing apprentices to memorize a poem, I had to endure another collective groan, “Noooo…!” And when I showed them the poem they would have two weeks to memorize, they went pale and were silenced.

The poem “Television” by Roald Dahl was the perfect poem for this project not only because we were exploring the theme “Unplug” in our writing workshop, but because if was long enough to prove the vast potential of their ability to memorize.

The lesson began, “Memorized poems fill the pantry of our imagination with food that is sure to sustain us in lean times. If you don’t believe, read Frederick, by Leo Lionni.”

I went on, “I know, these days we’re not used to memorizing long passages of traditional poetry. But, wait think about all the memorizing we do on a daily basis!”

We generated a list and I saw color return to their cheeks.

Row, row, row your boat…

The wheels on the bus go round and round…

Peter Piper picked a peck…

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there…

I shared a story about my oldest Hannah being able to recite all of Beatrice Potter’s Peter Rabbit when she was three simply because I read it to her so often, “Memorizing is something you are equipped to accomplish!”

Still, I was struck by downcast attitude of my writing apprentices, as if this was the most arduous task on the planet. Can you say “Mountain from a molehill?” It was actually painful to watch them shilly-shally.

I’m happy to report that by the end of week one most of them found their footing. By the beginning of week two, they were having so much FUN that I announced we would be making a film of the project. We would turn Dahl’s poem into a documentary.

Here’s how I helped them break the memorization into manageable bits:

1. Begin with a close reading. This poem is a very long single stanza. Count the sentences in the poem. Translate each sentence into your own words. Write out each translation on a piece of paper.

2. Copy the poem, one sentence at a time and say the sentence slowly as you write.

3. Break the poem into small, manageable sections. Read and repeat one line at a time from a section without looking. Listen to the rhythm. Read the next line from this section, then repeat (without looking) the two lines. Continue on in this manner.

4. Once the entire poem is memorized, breathe life into your reading by going back to your close reading notes. Use your voice to add inflection.

At the end of the list I promised, “Soon you will not only have the poem memorized, but you carry the poem in your heart.”

And they did.

And they do.

So before summer slips too far away, plan an UNPLUG activity or two… and please, please, please, memorize a poem!

Posted on by

Unplug! Take it Outdoors

Photo-2
Photo
During the course of our virtual traveling this summer, we decided to touch down in Times Square via a Ravensburger puzzle. The adventure took place on our dining room table until this past week when we decided some fresh air and bit of sunshine was in order.

We slid what little of the puzzle we had completed onto an unused presentation board so that it could be stored outside. The board allows us to leave the puzzle on the picnic table over night tucked safely from the family of four rambunctious raccoons and other neighborhood nocturnal wildlife who have adopted my boy’s ninja warrior pool as a watering hole—check out the foot print!

So with only a few days of summer left, unplug in the great outdoors!

– Kim