Did you know that Johnny Appleseed was a missionary—and a war hero? Sixth Class students do! They recently learned a lot about that larger-than-life character using Fun-n-Facts for Brain-iacs, a syndicated feature penned by their Literature and Writing teacher, Mrs. Laura Craig. Fun-n-Facts appears each week in the Webster-Kirkwood Times.
Mrs. Craig began producing these one-page sheets a few years ago. “I created them because I loved using newspapers in the classroom but felt the ‘kid’s pages’ could be better if created by an educator. So, I prepared a prototype, went to my first newspaper trade show and was immediately picked up for syndication with Publishing Group of America. After three years with them, I went to self-syndication.”
Fun-n-Facts contains brief stories, illustrations, fun facts and games about a single topic. To date, Mrs. Craig has created approximately 300 editions, covering Charles Lindbergh, Shakespeare, bats, snakes, lighthouses, hurricanes, tornadoes, hamsters, baseball cards, stingrays, the Civil War, the Oregon Trail, clowns, butterflies, fire and Mars, to name a few.
Mrs Craig has been publishing Fun-n-Facts since 2004. During that time, they’ve run in approximately 40 papers nationwide.
