We offer three services specifically for schools. These are a bulk order service where you can receive multiple books at a 28% discount on the RRP, traditional author visits to schools and our unique and interactive author-led classroom visits based around the books we publish. To find out more about our bulk order service, please click here, while details of our traditional author visits to schools and our unique and interactive author-led classroom visits we offer are provided below.
Our traditional author visits to schools cost £175 (plus travel expenses outside of central Scotland) and involve talking to multiple classes and/or age groups (either together or as individual groups) over a period of several hours about any aspects relate to creating and writing books. In particular, since we specialise in publishing non-fiction books, we are particularly keen to talk about all aspects of non-fiction writing. To book a traditional author visit, please email info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com with the subject line School Visit Request.
Of more interest to many teachers are our unique interactive, author-led classroom visits. These visits are aimed at individual classes of up to 36 students, and are based around a specific topic covered by an individual book. Led by the author, these visits are packed with facts, practical demonstrations, interactive elements, outdoor activities and educational content that often fit within topics being studied by the class (such as Oceans, Space, Scottish Castles, Animals, Conservation, Scottish Culture, developing a growth mindsets and practical mathematics). We currently offer these along three separate themes. These are visits based on our Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia series, our Draw Your Own … series, and our individual books, Mantras To Help Kids Win At Life and The Little Book Of Zombie Mathematics 25 Zombie-based Maths Problems (see below for more details). Each one lasts approximately one hour and costs £50 per class visited (plus travel expenses). We can also provide copies of the associated book for each child in the class at a 50% discount on the RRP when ordered along side a class visit. This allows these books to be used in follow-up classroom activities associated with their theme and further increase the benefit of the visit for the students. To book one of these interactive classroom visits, please email info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com with the subject line Classroom Visit Request.
Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia Author-Led Classroom Visit
Each classroom visit lasts approximately one hour, and allow your students to explore a number of elements of non-fiction writing (like how to put numbers you read in non-fiction writing in a meaningful context and how people find out the facts that are found in non-fiction books) in fun and interesting ways. At present, we offer classroom visits on the following topics, but if you are interested in a classroom visit based around any of the other books in this series, let us know and we can see if we can arrange it):
Mammals: This visit is well-suited for any teacher looking for an author-led classroom visit that incorporates non-fiction writing, practical mathematics, problem solving, reading comprehension and outdoor learning to their This visit will introduce your students to what a mammal is, and then explore a range of record-breaking mammals, such as the largest, the smallest, the fastest, and the one that can hold its breath the longest, in a fun and interactive way. This includes having students divide themselves into groups that would be the same height as an African bush elephant, working out how many of them it would take to be the same length as a blue whale, and testing what mammals they’d be able to beat in a sprint over thirty metres. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
Our Solar System: This visit is well-suited to any class which is studying the topic of Space or Our Solar System. It introduces your students to what a solar system is, and then explore the characteristics of the different planets found in our solar system, such as their relative sizes, how much the same object would weigh on different planets, how far apart they are, how long a day is one each planet, and how long a year is there. This is done in a fun and interactive way in a fun and interactive way that combines reading comprehension, problem solving, practical mathematics and outdoor learning. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
Scotland’s Marine Life: This visit is well-suited for any class which is studying the Oceans or any other sea-related topic. It is led by Colin M. Drysdale, a real-life marine biologist, and author of the Scotland’s Dolphins and Scotland’s Seabirds books in our Draw your Own Encyclopaedia series. It introduces your students to a range of facts about various marine animals that call Scotland home, gannets, puffins, Arctic terns, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales and sharks, and then examines how marine biologists find these facts out in the first place. At the end, the students get to ask any questions they like about marine life, about working as a marine biologist, or about writing a non-fiction book. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
Scotland’s Folklore: This visit is well-suited for any class studying topics related to Scottish Culture. It introduces your students to what folklore is, as well as the many different folk stories from Scotland. This then leads on to a discussion of whether folk tales are true and what the factual basis of them may be. During this discussion, two folk tales in detail. These are the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui and the Loch Ness Monster. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
Scotland’s Castles: This visit is well-suited for any class which is studying the topic of Scottish Castles or Scottish History. It introduces your students to the different types of castles found in Scotland, why they are built in particular locations, what defences they have and how these can be overcome by attackers. This workshop ends with the students helping to construct a one metre tall trebuchet (a large catapult used to fling giant rocks at castles to destroy their defences before cannons were invented) and then use it to fire water balloons across the playground to demonstrate how it worked. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
Space Exploration: This visit is well-suited for any class which is studying topics related to space or space exploration. It introduces your students to space exploration, its history and what the future might hold for it. This workshop includes various interactive elements, including a practical demonstration of how rocket engines work and how rockets are designed, discussions about what we would need to set up a colony on Mars and whether we could ever travel to another star system, and ends with an introduction to how kids can grow up to be real-life space explorers. You can find our more details about what happens during this class visit here.
To book a Draw Your Own Encyclopaedia classroom visit, or if you have any questions on this subject, please email info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com. Please Note: Currently, we only offer these classroom visits in Scotland.
Draw Your Own … Author-Led Classroom Visit
Each of these classroom visits is based on one of the books in our Draw Your Own … series. Each visit begins by introducing the students to Dr Colin, the cryptozoologist and author of the books. In this introduction, he explains what a cryptozoologist is (it is someone who studies hidden, or unknown, animals), and how he has met many strange creatures during his travels. He then introduces the students to one of these strange creatures by reading a description of it, emphasising the evocative ‘wow’ words that bring this description to life, and asks the students to draw what they think the creature actually looks like. Through this, the children learn the value of descriptive words in the English language, and how they can be used to create pictures in the readers imagination. This is repeated with a second creature, and then finally, the students are given the name of a third creature and challenged to imagine what it might look like, create a description of it using as many descriptive ‘wow’ words as possible, and then draw a picture of it. Each workshop lasts between one and two hours (depending on the available time slot), and at present, the topics we offer visits for are Monsters In My House, Imaginary Menagerie and and our upcoming Fantastical Flower Fairies book. More visit topics will be added as we add more books to this series. To book a Draw Your Own … classroom visit, or if you have any questions on this subject, please email info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com. Please Note: Currently, we only offer these classroom visits in Central Scotland.
Mantras To Help Kids Win At Life Workshop
Mantras To Help Kids Win At Life is a workbook that aims to help children develop the psychological tools they need to be able to cope with all that life has to throw at them. In contains twelve specially crafted mantras based on the latest research into human psychology, each of which will help children develop a psychological tool to allow them to deal with a different aspect of life. These tools include growth mindset, resilience, gratitude and body safety. This workshop introduces children to the idea of mantras and how they can be used to help them cope with life and, by doing this, to build a better brain. This includes explaining to children how their brain works, how they can build new connections in it, why their brains may not always react in the most logical way and how they can train if to react in better ways. It ends with a practical demonstration of how children can apply some of the mantras from this book to their every day lives and use them to develop mew skills. This demonstration involves teaching the students how to make a balloon animals (something few of them will have been able to do at the start of this workshop. To book this classroom visit, or if you have any questions on this subject, please email info[at]pictishbeastpublications.com. Please Note: Currently, we only offer these classroom visits in Central Scotland.
Maths With Zombies Workshop
Our Maths With Zombies workshop is run in conjunction with an organisation called How To Raise A Happy Genius, and is part of their series of STEM workshops. This interactive workshop aims to show how mathematics can be used as part of everyday life, and even to help survive a zombie apocalypse. You can find our more about this workshop by clicking here. Please Note: Currently, we only offer these workshops in Central Scotland.