Welcome!

It Started With a Picture Book
I started this website as a simple place to offer my ideas, once a month, for using picture books in grads 3-8 to build vocabulary, teach writing skills, provide m models, connect to other subjects, support journal writing, and more. And that is what it still is, but it has a grown, a bit like Topsy.

I do workshops, principally on the writing process for grades 4-8, so a workshop sections was added. I have two Pinterest pages to support The Power of Extreme Writing: Extreme Writing – Journaling from Famous Paintings (with 3 prompts for each image), and Extreme Writing- Journaling Sayings, Proverbs, Idioms (each with 3 prompts).

There are also Pinterest pages to support my latest workshop – Inquiry 2.0 – Harnessing the Collective Brain Power of Your Class. They include, so far, Great Art Thefts- An Inquiry Project; Ephemeral Art – an Inquiry Project; Amazing Animals of History – An Inquiry Project; Hoaxes – An Inquiry Project. And more Inquiry 2.0 pages are on the way.

 And Lifestyles on the Side
I offer two workshops on lifestyles. One is The Indispensable Life Binder (the title varies a bit but it is about getting all your papers in one place) and the other is called Right Sizing Your Life: What I Learned and What You Need to Know (about my experiences downsizing). So, that got included AND I’ve just been forced by a media friend to add blog posts to that too. So check them out, and join up for a monthly tip on either downsizing or constructing your binder.

That’s it for now
But Topsy continues, inexorably it seems, to grow. So please join! I need followers everywhere to bring me joy and to inspire me to continue developing practical ideas for teachers and others.