Can you imagine having to write 500 words about your best friends' dog?
Ugh.
I know. Maybe their dog is special. But what if you're a cat person. Or maybe you don't even like animals...
Yep. That's how I felt when I read one more of the countless uninspiring writing prompts that faced me when teaching my kids writing. I couldn't bear making them waste their time writing about anything that didn't inspire them. I certainly didn't want to read uninspired writing either.
So I looked to my kids for inspiration. And there it was. My two boys created this sweet little newspaper that they called The Bunk Room in their bunk beds one late night with Grandpa's old Royal typewriter.
Long story short (full story here), I sat amidst the perfect storm. Needing to teach my kids aged 7-13 writing and my no-nonsense practical homeschooling plus journalistic background with a passion for magazines and voila, The Bunk Room magazine was born!
Now let's fast forward to today . . . ten years later, after publishing hundreds of articles in dozens of editions from kids throughout the land, we are proud to share The Bunk Room Study Buddy, a companion to The Bunk Room magazine.
Along the way, I coached not only my kids, but dozens of others in a local writing group and had the front row seat to what made most kids tick when it came to writing.
I saw the good, bad and ugly.
And their pain.
Which is actually your pain, as their parent, when they dilly and dally and just can't get that paper done about their best friend's dog.
With all that newfound inspiration burning a hole in my head, I could resist no longer. I needed to bring this experience to the many. We may be in the age of 140 character thoughts, but we still need to know how to write. No matter how old fashioned it seems.
The problem, as all parents and teachers know, is getting the kids inspired to sit still and write that paper. It's hard enough for seasoned writers to snap out of it and churn out their words, but what makes the pros different from mere mortals is practice. And lots of it.
Now with The Bunk Room Study Buddy, a companion to The Bunk Room, kids can ease into that writing and come out on the other end with a piece that's ready to be published. For real. Not just hidden in the back of an old folder.
When kids (or any of us!) have some practical reasons for writing and someone to guide them along the way, there's only progress. No more whining about writing. Now they'll have a purpose.
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Your Instructor
As a homeschooling mom of four, I have always been susceptible to the pleasant distraction of constant inspiration from my kids. One day, though, one particular inspiration took hold of not only me, but our whole family. That was the day my two boys (aged 8 & 10) came to me with their own little newspaper. Apparently, the night before, they were busy toiling away into the wee hours of the night on their dad's old Smith Corona, creating the first edition of what they titled, The Bunk Room.
At that moment, I sat amidst a perfect storm. Alongside my four charges, aged 8-14, homeschooling was starting to get really real. Ready or not, it was time to get down to business with this writing thing once and for all. With Margo at 14, I couldn't push it aside much longer. So suddenly, this little inspiration from the boys started to grow legs and flooded me with some crazy giddy.
Landing smack dab in front of me was an idea I didn't even know I had been waiting on for years. In an instant, I finally figured out how I could bring together my two favorite things: my family, and my love of creating cool stuff.
"You know," I said to the boys, "we could really turn this into something amazing."
And that was the beginning of The Bunk Room; a labor of love and learning that we all created together. All six of us Slabys.
Having said all that, this whole story didn't have instant buy in from me either, the instigator of the madness. I knew the work involved in taking this idea a step further, and being deep inside the chaos of a homeschooling family in full blown progress, I kept an arm's length to the idea.
But, it didn't take me long to start integrating my journalism background and love of magazines and graphic design into creating a platform for not only my kids, but for their friends and other kids worldwide. Now kids had a good reason to write. Not just because they had to for some assignment. I just couldn't fathom all the hard work and energy needed to write well, dead-ending in a folder and forgotten. What fun was that? With a little (a lot) of help from me, that little hand-scrolled, manually typed missive my boys created soon become a beloved magazine written by kids and read by all ages. All over the world. And with dozens of editions to date.
Maria Slaby, publisher of The Bunk Room and CEO of Dimples Media, has spent the greater part of her life following her passion of making beautiful things for digital, print and home. All the while, teaching and inspiring kids naturally followed, positioning her perfectly in her happy place. As a graduate of Journalism / Business from the University of Wisconsin, with a career spanning decades in the rapidly changing publishing industry, working with major publishers and corporations as well as entrepreneurially, Maria creates her own special brand of inspiration for kids of all ages.
Course Curriculum
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StartThe Bunk Room Issue #43 download
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StartActivity 01 Using Specific Details: What do you think? (5:31)
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StartActivity 02: Varying Sentence Structure (6:32)
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StartActivity 03: Supporting a Main Idea (4:36)
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StartActivity 04: Making Text to Self Connections (4:12)
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StartActivity 05: Using Figurative Language (4:58)
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StartActivity 06: Making a Difference (9:10)
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StartActivity 07: A Rite of Passage (4:15)
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StartActivity 08: Meet the Author (3:59)
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StartActivity 09: Quoting a Source (4:36)
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StartActivity 10: Analyzing and Writing Poetry (5:09)
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StartActivity 11: Developing a Formal Argument (4:39)
Frequently Asked Questions
Thank you so much for participating in The Bunk Room Academy! We hope you enjoyed your experience and we look forward to see your writing. Stay in touch!