Books for gifted children from Royal Fireworks Press, publishers for the gifted education curriculum.

LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULUM FROM MICHAEL CLAY THOMPSON Grammar, Vocabulary, Poetry and Writing Quick Links... Word Within The Word Vocabulary program Magic Lens Grammar program Poetics series Writing series Free Downloads | Videos | Join his Email List

Royal Fireworks Press is the world's largest publisher of books for gifted children.

Our aim is to enhance the educational experience of gifted and talented children and to provide teachers, administrators, homeschoolers and parents with the books they need at affordable prices.

Amongst our 800 titles we are particularly proud of Michael Clay Thompson's language arts curriculum.

We welcome inquiries from authors about publishing books for gifted children. Submission guidelines download (PDF, 61KB)

All of our books are printed and bound in the United States by union workers using recycled paper, vegetable-based inks, and environmentally friendly cover coatings. 

LATEST NEWS 

• Congratulations to VS Chin whose middle-school, interactive novel, Dragon Girl, has won her a 2010 Georgia Author of the Year award... read more.

• MCTLA , the homeschoolers' MCT discussion and support group, now has more than 1,000 members.
• We are at the South East Homeschool Conference in Atlanta: booths 605/706, July 30/31
• Cathy Duffy has reviewed the MCT Curriculum on her website, saying: "I suspect that most parents will be inspired by these books, just as I was, since they reveal aspects of language arts that offer beauty and meaning."

• MCT's keynote speech to North Carolina Gifted Conference added to the downloads page. 

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• A beautiful book showing how to screen-print ... see our first featured book below
• A new book of lessons to help gifted children communicate, by Dr Lou Lloyd-Zannini Insight Out
• The revised and redesigned Keepers of the Flame,  resource book for poetry and prose
• Two innovative project books by teachers of the gifted: TACKLE Thursdays  and Earth Park
• A new series of inspirational novels by Ronica Stromberg
  

• Yahoo support groups: MCTteachers,  for teachers and educators using or considering using Michael Clay Thompson Language Arts curriculum, and MCTLA for homeschoolers
• Michael Clay Thompson Curriculum Packages at discounted prices: some for school examination purposes and others specially for homeschooling
• New Math series for the exceptionally gifted: see below in Featured Titles

Remember

• Michael Thompson's slide show about how and when to introduce his grammar, vocabulary, practice, writing, reading and poetics. See implementation advice
• In OTHER NEW TITLES: latest novels for young adults and more teacher resources

FEATURED TITLES FOR GIFTED CHILDREN

Simple Guide to Screen Printing

Screen printing is a simple, enjoyable, and cost effective method of creating multiples of original artwork.  Artists and teachers will benefit personally and professionally by following the explicit and easily understandable steps in A Simple Guide to Screen Printing.

Vidabeth Bensen and Barbara Forshag guide you step-by-step through this printmaking process.  You will learn how to print your own designs on paper, cards, banners, T-shirts and create original prints for framing.  The materials are inexpensive, and teachers can use screen printing to enrich almost any area of their curriculum. Read more: Simple Guide to Screen Printing

Advanced Academic Writing Volume 2: Parent Manual

This Parent Manual for Advanced Academic Writing Volume 2 by Michael Clay Thompson is a new book for homeschooling parents who need to teach their children a proficiency in writing which they may not necessarily have themselves.  The book includes the pages of the student manual with special instructions and comments for the teacher/parent.

Whereas the Teacher Manual is for teachers and parents who are familiar with and at ease with instructing children in academic writing, many parents are not, and this Parent Manual offers several strategies so that they can address the needs of their children. Read more: Advanced Academic Writing Volume 2: Parent Manual

Insight Out...A challenge to Communicate

With detailed instructional strategies this important new book offers twenty-five lessons to restore voice to the gifted student, the student who has been silent, possibly feeling as an outsider and who has still to understand   that he or she has much to share with others.

For teachers of high-ability learners, this book “is a call to excellence in communication."  Read more: Insight Out...A challenge to Communicate

Advanced Academic Writing Volume Two: Student Book

Volume Two's Student and Teacher books, published in November 2009, extend this exacting program from Volume One with more elaborate MLA format rules, more competent essay continuity to forge, more proofreader's marks and forty more actual research paper comments to absorb.

So that students and teachers do not have to juggle two books to find out what is in which book, Volume Two also contains the summaries of punctuation, usage and grammar rules of Volume One for review, with additional items and special comments. Read more: Advanced Academic Writing Volume Two: Student Book

Keepers of the Flame: Poetry and Prose Resource Book

This is a revised and redesigned edition of what has proved to be a wonderfully practical and inspirational book for teachers.

KEEPERS OF THE FLAME is a big book of 322 pages and has been described as 'a cornerstone for teaching poetry in all its glory to today's students and …a guiding torch for teachers to follow as they lead their students in appreciation of others’ poetry and to the poet inside themselves'.

Its aim is to enable students to be comfortable as readers, and as writers, of poetry. Its strategies and techniques have proved to work equally well with highly gifted students and with a whole range of students at every level: gifted, foreign language, average and those with learning disabilities. Read more: Keepers of the Flame: Poetry and Prose Resource Book

TACKLE Thursdays

T.A.C.K.L.E. Thursdays

Thinking Across the Curriculum, Kicking Up Leveled Education

Creating a life-long love of learning

This rich resource for grades 3-8 was designed to encourage student enthusiasm towards challenging work. It has tiered instruction, independent study, student choice, and variety of activities for all students as well as gifted learners.  It incorporates in-depth studies to take the students to new heights of learning.

T.A.C.K.L.E was developed out of the necessity to service gifted learners in a classroom that was not homogeneous.

For elementary and middle schools preparing their students to excel in the 21st century, the fourteen units cover mathematics, science, social studies and English language arts content, technology, hands-on group work, individualized projects and more. Read more: TACKLE Thursdays

Earth Park

Earth Park stemmed from a special end-of-the-year project with 3rd and 5th grade students from which the author developed this practical, hands-on and creative, critical thinking project which can be a whole-school experience.

In the year 2097, the Knowaltz family sets out to design a park on an asteroid circling the Earth.  The park is to be a theme park, with separate exhibits of displays of the geographic features representing a type of Earth environment – oceans, mountains, forests, etc. – including the plants, animals and human cultures that have called this environment home.

This is a multiple team project to build the various exhibit halls for this futuristic theme park. Read more: Earth Park

All Work and No Play: Teacher Manual

This is a high-school level problem-based learning unit focusing on child labor during the Progressive Era of American history. Students go through All Work and No Play in the role of members of the National Child Labor committee preparing for a Congressional Hearing. Presented with photographs from Lewis Hine, they launch into questions about the extent and nature of child labor, the differences in child labor in industry and agriculture, the background of child laborers, existing regulations on child labor and more. Read more: All Work and No Play: Teacher Manual

Excluded! Chinese Immigration to the US: Teacher Manual

This is a Problem-Based Learning unit about the Chinese Exclusion Laws in the late 1800s. Designed primarily for high school classes, students investigate how and why the Chinese Exclusion Laws came into being from the vantage point of a Congressman from California trying to decide whether support the Geary Act.

The Resource Book, Teacher Manual and Problem Log make up the Unit.

Before the unit is over, students are forced to consider what reasonable limits can or should be placed on immigration in a country that urged "bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses…" Throughout, students draw powerful parallels to contemporary immigration issues. Read more: Excluded! Chinese Immigration to the US: Teacher Manual

Scientist's Survival Guide

 In this memoir and ‘survival guide’ he tells of odds overcome, goals achieved as well as failures and missteps along the way. He gives detailed advice on how to plan and conduct research projects and how to apply for patents. He discusses ethical issues and how to leave an unsatisfactory job. Throughout, his devotion to scientific endeavour and his interest in the people he has met along the way, some of whom are the leading chemists of the 20th century, make fascinating reading. Read more: Scientist's Survival Guide

Supplemental Mathematics for the Curious: Number Systems

Designed for the self-learner who has completed the traditional high school mathematics curriculum through trigonometry, this supplemental text is ideal for summertime or other independent study.

Careful exposition of the topics and well-developed examples with ample comments guide the student’s thinking, while answers to odd-numbered exercises provide feedback on the student’s progress.

Beginning with new ways to think about such familiar number systems as natural and rational numbers, the text progresses through algebraic numbers, real numbers, complex numbers, quaternions and infinitesimals, Read more: Supplemental Mathematics for the Curious: Number Systems

Supplemental Mathematics for the Curious: Number Theory

Designed for the gifted self-learner who has completed Algebra I, this supplemental high school text is ideal for summertime or other independent study. Careful exposition of the topics and well-developed examples with ample comments guide the student’s thinking, while answers to odd-numbered exercises provide feedback on the student’s progress.

The topics chosen form an introduction to the rich field of number theory. Among others, they include: divisibility, the Euclidean algorithm, prime numbers, figurate numbers, recursively-defined numbers such as Fibonacci and Lucas numbers, Read more: Supplemental Mathematics for the Curious: Number Theory

Dr Dave's Teaching Manuals: Our Solar System

A visually stunning book and accompanying CD for the projection of images. This book will inspire teachers and students and enable them to better understand our solar system. The series hallmark of simple explanations with class activities using readily available materials, is beautifully presented here.

Teach the structure of the Sun, show the planets, asteroids and meteors and demonstrate revolution and rotation.

To see the principles behind this new science series and other titles go to Dr Dave's Teaching Manuals

Samples: (pdf files) Contents | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 15

Dr Dave's Teaching Manuals: The Oceans

Another visually attractive and empowering teacher manual and CD from Dr Dave. He covers salinity, tides and currents, the different layers of the Oceans, food chains, fish, mammals and other life, enlivened with jokes that appeal to children and with activities that all can join in.

Sample pages: (pdf files) Contents | Page 3 | Page 13 | Page 21

Bloom's Taxonomy Poster

Class sets of 25 or more: $8.00 each. (Order Code: 2432S) Add to Cart

View a larger image

Based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy; widely used in the education of gifted and talented children.

A classroom wall poster of approximately 2 feet by 3 feet, on glossy light card stock, uv coated for maximum durability. Based on Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy as revised, it sets out and explains the different levels of thinking in the cognitive domain, with question clues and student activities. Read more: Bloom's Taxonomy Poster

Reclaiming the Lives of Gifted Girls and Women

Royal Fireworks Press is proud to present this important new work from one of the leading figures in Gifted Education as part of the Royal Fireworks series of Monographs on Education. Dr Smutny writes about the special challenges and needs of gifted females, drawing both on academic research and on the life-experiences of individuals.

Though drawing on research, this is a practical guide with activities and strategies to strengthen the inner life of gifted girls, Read more: Reclaiming the Lives of Gifted Girls and Women