Royal Fireworks Press Blog
Celebrating Another Award Winner
Royal Fireworks Press is proud to announce that The Day the Thought Bubbles Got in the Way has been honored with the Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award! This prestigious seal of educational quality is reserved only for the best mind-building media. This independent awards program and its seal of excellence are recognized worldwide by consumers and educational institutions as […]
School starts soon!
The Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community‘s fall semester begins next week, and we’re excited about the diverse lineup of courses that we’re offering! We provide both single-semester courses and full-year courses that span Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, and it’s not too late to sign up. Michael Clay Thompson is offering all seven levels of […]
A New Novel about the Pioneers of Early America
Fur trapping and trading was the first big business in America. Trappers tramped all across the American wilderness in search of beavers to trap for their thick, lush pelts, and traders followed them upstream, offering them and the Native Americans they encountered goods and supplies in exchange for furs. These men set up trading posts, […]
An Exciting New Online Course
As the pandemic increasingly challenges educational institutions, the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community continues to try to find more and varied opportunities for our children. Today we are announcing a fall-semester course entitled “The History, Economics, and Design of High Fashion from 1901 to the Present.” This is a fascinating area of inquiry. It has […]
Announcing Advanced Individual Online Learning
We are pleased to announce the availability of opportunities for advanced individual study in the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community. This is an opportunity for older children to work directly with experts in various fields on projects or areas of intense reading and study. The initial opportunities include history, creative writing, Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy, […]
A Diversity of Online Courses for Children
At the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community, we continue to think about children and their diverse needs in the current situation, and we continue to expand the learning opportunities that we offer. New to our course offerings is Dr. Rachel McAnallen’s math for highly gifted young children. Dr. McAnallen is one of the country’s most […]
Teaching Young Children about Mindful Eating
It’s not news that too many people today struggle with weight gain and obesity, including our children, who are getting less and less physically healthy at an alarming rate. There are many reasons for this problem, including a lack of exercise, easy access to inexpensive high-fat foods, and a lack of access in some areas […]
Online Courses Allow Children to Meet the Great Minds of the Past
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Alexander the Great in 356 B.C.E., and it’s a good moment to reflect on the greatness of ancient Greece. One of Alexander’s prized possessions was a copy of the Iliad annotated for him by Aristotle, his tutor in his formative years. In the fifth and fourth centuries, […]
Expanded Online Course Offerings from Royal Fireworks
As you consider the educational options for your children this fall, we would like to remind you that the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community offers an expanding array of high-level courses for children, teens, and young adults. Fields of study range from language arts to math and science. We offer history from ancient Greece and […]
New Online Courses in Biology and Chemistry
As the United States continues to experience ever-increasing levels of Covid-19 infections, and the prospects of returning to a life we knew in 2019 recedes further from us, many children have become curious about the inner workings of the human body—and about science in general. At Royal Fireworks, we are expanding our science offerings for […]
Online Buddhism Workshop to Help Children Learn Mindfulness
Much to our collective dismay, the pandemic in many parts of the country (and the world) is resurging, and local governments are backtracking on—or at least rethinking—their reopening strategies. We were all relieved to be able to go back to parts of our lives that felt normal, but that relief (even if it was tentative) […]
New Dyslexia-Friendly Series of American History Books
At Royal Fireworks Press, we are continually adding to our offerings of books for children who struggle with reading disorders such as dyslexia. Our goal is to welcome into the world of books children who resist reading because it has always been difficult for them. We have published several series of books about American history […]
Summer Writing Courses
It’s not too late to register your child for the special summer writing courses that begin this week in the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community. There are courses in creative writing and essay writing, both of which are offered at two levels of instruction. All of the live classes will be recorded and viewable at […]
New Online Essay Writing and Creative Writing Courses
As Covid-19 continues to spread across the world and disrupt our assumptions, Royal Fireworks will continue to be flexible in how we help you meet the needs of your children. Today we are announcing new writing courses in the Online Learning Community for the summer in essay writing and creative writing. The courses will begin […]
Some of Our Favorite Novels Re-Released!
Royal Fireworks Press offers dozens upon dozens of novels for children. We choose them carefully and deliberately. We want stories that give children insight into the world, that teach them things they didn’t know, that expand their perspectives about what they think and understand, and that entertain them while doing so. One of our favorite […]
Helping Our Children to Find Resilience
Communities around the world are slowly beginning to reopen. People are starting to resume some of the normal activities that were curtailed by stay-at-home orders. Some people are going back to work. And yet life is anything but normal. Worse, many health experts predict that our desire to return to some semblance of the world […]
Online Learning: A Valuable Way to Spend Time This Summer
While much of America is trying to find ways to occupy time at home, we at Royal Fireworks think it’s the ideal time to introduce children to new topics, expand their minds, and engage their curiosity, as well as to strengthen some of the foundations of core areas of study. Our summer semester begins next […]
A Wide Array of Online Summer Courses
As we face a summer and fall of both social and academic uncertainty, many parents are worried about how to balance the educational needs of their children with their desire to stay safe. At Royal Fireworks, we are expanding our Online Learning Community to meet both goals. We are offering not only the basics in […]
Don’t Miss Stories that the History Books Leave Out
When children read about history, they often do so using history textbooks, which are frequently little more than listings of events and the dates on which they happened. Sometimes, if a child is truly interested in a topic, he or she might read a biography or a book about a specific person or event, but […]
The Philosophy of Entertainment
Royal Fireworks Press has just released our newest set of books in the Western philosophy series: The Transparent Eyeball. The student book, a novel, has an accompanying guidebook that allows children to delve deeply into the philosophical issues that the characters in the novel face. Together, the books provide both an entertaining read and a […]
A New Series That’s Pure Gold for Kids Who Struggle to Read
Royal Fireworks Press has just published the latest series of books in our Adventures on the American Frontier Dyslexia Series collection. Gold Rush Adventures chronicles the California Gold Rush, offering new and diverse perspectives on what the Gold Rush truly was like. The six-part series explains how gold was discovered and the methods used to […]
A New Book about the Woman Who Introduced the World to Computers
When most people think of computer innovation, they think of men like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. But one of the first people to conceptualize what computers could do was a woman named Ada Lovelace. Lovelace was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, but that was not what she would be […]
Online Courses to Expand Children’s Understanding of World Religions
Religion has been an undeniable force throughout human history, and it remains so today. Influencing everything from literature and philosophy to art and politics, religion is a dynamic dimension of world culture. Developing a basic understanding of the world’s religious traditions is part of an excellent education, allowing students to understand more fully the institutions, […]
New Videos to Learn about the MCT Language Arts Curriculum
The Michael Clay Thompson language arts curriculum is the gold standard. Schools and parents all over the country—and in some cases the world—use the MCT curriculum to give their students and their children a thorough, accessible, challenging education in the language arts. But the MCT curriculum is so comprehensive that it might be intimidating to […]
New Editions of Caesar’s English by MCT!
Royal Fireworks Press is excited to announce new editions of Caesar’s English I and Caesar’s English II. The new books feature QR codes of Michael Clay Thompson reading his poems and stories, as well as some of his expositions on the classic words. Hearing Michael read his work, especially his poems and the author quotes […]
Special May Session of Online Learning, Plus New Summer Courses
As it becomes increasingly clear that schools are not going to reopen this spring and that summer camps and programs are not going to be open or take place, the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community is adding more and more online courses. To augment the special spring courses we added last month, we are offering […]
There’s Still Time to Sign up for the Spring Session of Our Online School
When schools across the country—and across the world—closed their doors to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, we at Royal Fireworks put together a special spring session of the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community to keep children learning, even if they can’t finish out the school year in their traditional classrooms. Our spring session […]
A New Series of Books for Children Who Struggle with Reading
Royal Fireworks Press has published a series of dyslexia-friendly books, adding to our collection of American history books called Adventures on the American Frontier. The release of this series was delayed by the coronavirus crisis, but now that we are settling in to a new work-from-home routine, we see no reason not to announce it […]
Let Our Experts Ease Some of the Burden
It isn’t easy doing something you’ve never done before. It’s even harder if you’ve never been trained how to do it. Lots of parents are in the sudden, unenviable position of having to perform the duties of teacher as schools struggle to implement distance learning options in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Teaching children […]
Special Spring Session of Our Online School Starts Today
We at Royal Fireworks Press have put together a special spring session of courses for the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community to help parents enable their children to continue learning, despite nationwide school closures. This session is designed to bridge the gap between now and our summer session, which begins the first week of June. […]
A Special Spring Semester of Online Learning for Students Whose School Has Closed
Parenting children has always presented challenges, but with the coronavirus pandemic being responsible for so many school closures, there is now the additional challenge of keeping children academically engaged and progressing without the help of teachers or schools. Royal Fireworks Press has always given special consideration to the academic and intellectual needs of children, and […]
An Honest Look at Irish History
On St. Patrick’s Day, we celebrate by wearing green and painting shamrocks on store windows. But there are other ways to celebrate Irish culture and heritage. This year, grow your understanding of what it means to be Irish with our novel A Thousand Tears. The story takes place during the Great Famine that ravaged Ireland in the […]
It’s March 14th: Pi Day!
When mathematicians get playful, they do things like designating March 14th as Pi Day. After all, who among the mathematically inclined can look at a calendar, see 3.14, and not immediately think, “Hey, that’s pi. We should celebrate!”? At Royal Fireworks Press, this is just the kind of intellectual play that we enjoy—and that we […]
Should We Teach Children about the Black Death Now?
Fears about the coronavirus have swept the world, and children are not immune to feelings of stress and anxiety that they see in the adults around them and that they read in social media and the news. Of course we should teach our children ways to avoid infection, and we should do what we can […]
New Editions of Three MCT Books to Celebrate National Grammar Day
Today is National Grammar Day, making it the perfect day for Royal Fireworks Press to announce the publication of a new edition of Michael Clay Thompson‘s hugely popular grammar texts: The Magic Lens. These books, in three progressive volumes for children in grades 7 and up, are enhanced with a special bonus feature: audio of […]
A Novel to Celebrate World Hearing Day
It’s World Hearing Day, and to celebrate, Royal Fireworks Press is re-releasing a relevant and touching novel for children about hearing loss. What if you woke up one morning, and the entire world was silent? Although it’s rare, this scenario actually happens to some people, and it happened to twelve-year-old David, shattering his dreams of […]
A Book about Bridging Cultures
John Kallas was born in Newark, New Jersey, a first-generation American to Greek immigrant parents. He, his sister, and his two younger brothers were raised in the space between two languages, two cultures, two completely different ways of life. They were the bridge between their Greek parents and their American home. Many American customs were […]
Royal Fireworks Online Learning Is Open for Fall 2020
The Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community is already taking registrations for the fall semester and the next academic school year. We’re looking ahead to what’s next, and we’re excited about the learning opportunities that we are able to provide! Michael Clay Thompson is again offering all seven levels of his MCT language arts curriculum, but […]
A Timely New Problem-Based Learning Unit
Royal Fireworks Press is pleased to announce the publication of our latest Problem-Based Learning unit for middle schoolers, The Great Debates, which explores how the brand-new medium of television changed the political landscape of the 1960 presidential election. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) units are designed to immerse children in real-world problems by making them key stakeholders in […]
Michael Clay Thompson Receives ANOTHER Award!
Royal Fireworks Press is proud to announce that Michael Clay Thompson’s latest book, Poodle Knows What?, has received a Mom’s Choice Gold Award honoring excellence. The Mom’s Choice Awards program is globally recognized for establishing the benchmark of excellence in family-friendly media, products, and services. This comes on the heels of Practical Homeschooling‘s announcement that […]
New Editions of Some of Our Favorite Novels
At Royal Fireworks Press, we have a wide selection of historical novels that teach children and teens, not just about history, but about character and integrity and the challenges of real-life conflicts and struggles. Many of those novels are time-tested because they have been around for several years. Recently we have reissued new editions of […]
Announcing a New Online Course on the American Civil War
You asked, and we have delivered! During the last few years, parents have asked us to add American history courses to the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community. We are happy to say that we at last have found the instructor we need to do just that. Dr. Stephen Cox not only has taught at the […]
A Look Back at 2019
As we look back on the year as it comes to an end, we at Royal Fireworks Press are pleased by the many accomplishments we were able to achieve in 2019. We published a number of important books, both for children and adults, and we offered an array of online courses that were intellectually stimulating […]
Royal Fireworks Online Courses: Something for Everyone
At Royal Fireworks Press, we are continuously looking for ways in which to improve our offerings. A few years ago, we decided to create an online learning community to enable children to learn subjects—both those taught in traditional schools and those that are not—at a level that they may not find anywhere else and by […]
New Sessions of Successful Online Courses for Students
The Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community has been so successful that many of our instructors are returning to teach in the Spring 2020 semester. Two of those instructors have recently announced plans to teach again, both because they so thoroughly enjoy the interactions with students and because the students were so excited and interested in […]
Stress-Reduction Resources for Children and Adults
Stress is a problem for most of our population in today’s world. The pressures are often most acute in children because they generally find themselves in situations and environments that they have not chosen for themselves, and they don’t have effective techniques for dealing with their unpleasant feelings. At Royal Fireworks Press, we are dedicated […]
Royal Fireworks Press Receives Homeschool Award
As we celebrate the forty-second anniversary of the founding of Royal Fireworks Press, we have received word that we have been chosen as one of the howtohomeschool.net 2020 Best Homeschool Curriculum and Resources Award winners. Fittingly, it was for us as an entire company and not simply for our language arts, or philosophy, or math, […]
Announcing a New Course on the Literature of Ancient Greece
Dr. Thomas Milton Kemnitz will teach a course on the literature of Greece in the Classical Age in the Spring 2020 semester of the Royal Fireworks Press Online Learning Community. Greece during the Classical Age (490-323 B.C.) was one of the most fertile and productive societies in the history of the world, and its contributions […]
A New Publication about Giftedness!
We are pleased to announce the publication of The Essential Guidebook for Parents of Gifted Children by Jennifer Ault. This book is designed to offer a concise yet thorough introduction to giftedness for parents new to the subject; however, it will also be a valuable resource to those knowledgeable about the topic, in part because […]
A New Set of Books in the Adventures on the American Frontier Series
Royal Fireworks Press is excited to announce the next set of books in our Adventures on the American Frontier dyslexia series. The latest addition is a series of books titled Men on Iron Horses, and it explores the birth of the locomotive and the building of the railroad across the United States. The locomotive was […]
Four Royal Fireworks Students Earn National Award
Royal Fireworks Press is thrilled to announce that four of the students in our Online Learning Community have won awards for their creative writing. The students entered a national Halloween Ghost Story contest sponsored by Saugus.net, and the winners were announced on Thursday. Both of the students who won at the elementary level are international […]
Announcing New Biographical American History Books
Royal Fireworks Press announces the publication of new, revised editions of the series of books entitled Adventures on the American Frontier. These books are biographical novels that tell the stories of many of the people who were important to the development of American history—people who are often left out of traditional history books. Biographical stories […]
Royal Fireworks Press Announces the Newest Book by Michael Clay Thompson!
During the past few years, Michael Clay Thompson has been teaching his language arts curriculum in the Royal Fireworks Online Learning Community to groups of lucky students. This interaction with the children has brought him great joy, a new burst of creativity, and a desire to share his vision with even younger students than those […]
Announcing a New Biography for Children
Some of the best stories are true, and the story of David Blackwell, a brilliant African-American mathematician working before and during the Civil Rights era, is a fascinating tale of a man who spent his life solving mathematical problems that no one had yet solved. David Blackwell and the Deadliest Duel is the newest book […]
Announcing a New Book for Gifted, Intense Children
Gifted children typically exhibit a variety of intensities. For example, they tend to be extremely intellectually curious and pursue topics of interest with passion and fervor. Some have wild imaginations and dream up elaborate fantasy worlds. Some seem to be overly emotional; they are highly sensitive to criticism and exhibit surprising degrees of empathy with […]
Announcing a New Edition of a Book by Annemarie Roeper
Annemarie Roeper was an icon in the field of gifted education, and her books are revered by parents and educators everywhere for the ways in which they teach us to honor children and lift them up to become the best versions of themselves that they are capable of becoming. In this newly edited and revised […]
Another Honor for the MCT Language Arts Curriculum
The readers of Practical Homeschooling magazine have voted Michael Clay Thompson’s language arts curriculum the best for online instruction. The MCT curriculum is available in three forms online. First and foremost, it is taught in many online classes from many different sources. The luckiest children are those who are instructed by Michael Clay Thompson himself […]
New Set of Dyslexia-Friendly Books Now Available: Mail Riders
Royal Fireworks Press is excited to announce the release of the Mail Riders Dyslexia Series, the fourth set of dyslexia-friendly books in our collection of books about the history of America: Adventures on the American Frontier. Mail Riders joins Cowboys and Cattle Drives, Pioneer Show People, and Pirates and Privateers—sets of books that are all […]
A New Book to Help Young Children Understand Themselves
Royal Fireworks Press is proud to announce the publication of our newest book to help young children gain perspective, self-awareness, and self-control: The Secret Code of Senses. The Secret Code of Senses teaches children methods of intentional sensing—the act of deliberately concentrating on a sense in order to redirect the mind away from distractions or […]
A New Series of Books about Pirates!
Royal Fireworks Press announces the publication of its newest series of books for children with dyslexia and other reading disorders: Pirates and Privateers. The six books that make up the series tell the tales of some of the most notorious pirates to sail the seas around the East Coast of America and the Caribbean, as […]
The Day the Thoughts Got Stuck Is an Academics’ Choice Award Winner!
We are proud to announce that The Day the Thoughts Got Stuck has received an Academics’ Choice Smart Book Award. The Day the Thoughts Got Stuck is the second book in Ingrid Klass’s series about thinking for young children. In it, readers meet Rosa, a young girl who is unhappy with her birthday gift. Three […]
Announcing a New Latin Graphic Novel
Royal Fireworks Press has published its first curriculum component as a graphic novel! It is designed to appeal to middle-grade students. The content is our immersion Latin curriculum by Dr. Frances Spielhagen. The first two years of the curriculum introduce Latin vocabulary and grammar in a natural progression. The process is so easy and readily […]
A New Book to Teach Young Children Mindful Breathing
We are proud to announce the publication of Breath Magic by Jordan Novak and Cody Rounds. This book was created to help young children become more self-aware and to teach them how to take control of their emotions and their bodies. Breath Magic introduces children to their breathing and encourages them to change their breathing patterns as […]
Announcing a New Book to Help Children Deal with Stress
Royal Fireworks Press announces a new book about stress in gifted children. Almost everyone experiences stress, with the fast pace of society and technology and the onslaught of the 24-hour news cycle that leaves most of us feeling bad. But gifted kids have special stressors that most people don’t think about, often because they don’t know […]
The Circle of Happiness Receives Mom’s Choice Award
The Circle of Happiness by Ingrid Klass has been given a gold Mom’s Choice Award. The special emphasis on this award is for “items that help families grow emotionally, physically and spiritually; are morally sound and promote good will; and are inspirational and uplifting.” Beautifully illustrated, the book introduces preteens and teens to the fundamentals […]
A Special Reading and Math Pack for Children with Dyslexia
As part of our ongoing efforts to help meet the needs of children with dyslexia, we are pleased to introduce our Night of the Paranormal Patterns Dyslexia Pack. The pack is based on the premise that although dyslexic children struggle to develop their reading skills, they are capable and should be challenged in other subjects […]
A New Book about Florence Nightingale
Royal Fireworks Press is proud to announce Florence Nightingale: The Lady with the Diagrams, the second biography in the Mathematical Lives series. Written by Robert Black, with whom many readers are familiar from his Mathematical Nights novels, the book delves into the mathematical life of Florence Nightingale. Known for her revolutionary impact on medicine, Florence Nightingale transformed […]
Announcing Logic-Math Exercises for Elementary-Age Children
Logic-Math Exercises for Elementary-Age Children brings the popular Logic-Math series to a more advanced level, with exercises designed for children in grades 3-4. The math concepts in this book include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percent, graphs, geometry, volume, money, time, and more, all as a means of mastering critical-thinking skills rather than as computational challenges. The […]
A New Novel about the Irish Potato Famine
The Great Famine that ravaged Ireland in the years 1845-1849 killed about a million people and caused about a million more to flee the country in search of a better life. It was a time of mass starvation and disease, and it had deep political, cultural, demographic, and social consequences. These facts are hard to […]
Flashcards for Caesar’s English
In response to many requests, we have produced 4×6-inch flashcards of the Latin stems and English vocabulary words that appear in Michael Clay Thompson’s Caesar’s English books. Both sets of flashcards are printed on durable card stock. They have the word or stem printed on the front and the definition on the back. The large, black type is easy […]
Learning Options for the MCT Language Arts Curriculum
The Royal Fireworks Press language arts curriculum by Michael Clay Thompson has two goals: to ensure that the individual student who completes it is proficient in the language arts at a level that will carry him or her through life, and to inspire a lifelong love of the English language and its literature. The education […]
A New Eastern Philosophy New Book
Help your child begin the new year with a little more peace, mindfulness, and contentment. Royal Fireworks Press announces The Day the Thoughts Got Stuck, the new Eastern philosophy book by Ingrid Klass. Readers familiar with The Day the Thought Bubbles Got in the Way will recognize and remember our protagonist Rosa from that book, where she and her […]