Magic Lantern – The Company
Magic Lantern – The People
Magic Lantern – The Philosophy

Since my husband and I first sat down to brainstorm about this business idea on October 1st, 2008, Magic Lantern has evolved into a fantastic educational resource site for parents and educators as well as a creative product website with fun writing projects that inspire kids’ imaginations and promote literacy. My kids (now 8, 4, and 2) inspire me every day. They teach me to have patience, to follow my dreams, and to never give up. Magic Lantern can help your child to get excited about what inspires them. The Magic Lantern writing projects can be a vehicle for them to express themselves and grow in self-confidence. Spend time making these “family projects” and you will be amazed at what your child can accomplish!

Enjoy!

What you should find on the Magic Lantern site:

• Accurate, up to date, credible information on topics of interest related to literacy
• Beautifully created, high quality products - All of the literacy projects were designed to help your child express their inner feelings, thoughts, and ideas, and to become actively engaged in the process of reading and writing
• Cherished keepsakes that will last a lifetime as a “snapshot” of who your child is at this moment in their lives
• Fun, engaging activities that involve you and your child, in meaningful, family and community building projects.
• Educational games, activities, and ideas to keep your child coming back to learn more and just have fun

Thank you for spending time getting to know us. We always welcome comments, suggestions, and new ideas. You can contact us by email: paige@mymagiclantern.com or give us a call at 303-456-9355.

Magic Lantern - The People

Paige Hilfer – Owner
Paige Eaton Hilfer grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland and currently lives with her husband and 3 children in Golden, Colorado.  Paige graduated with honors with both a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from the University of Maryland College Park, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Maryland at Baltimore.   Paige was a teacher for 5th and 6th grade Special Education children in Maryland.  She spent time working in the health and fitness industry, retail sales, and as a Manager in Commercial Real Estate before going back to school for Nursing.  After 10 years as a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse, she is now facing her most challenging and rewarding career daily nurturing the soles of her three beautiful children as a “Stay-at-Home-Mom”.  

Mark Akins – Educational Consultant, Author “The Lyric of Language – A writer’s journey”
Mark is a 14 year veteran teacher. He has a Masters in Instruction and Curriculum with a Reading Endorsement from the University of Colorado and a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Arizona State University. Mark has received several honors including a Nomination for Disney Teacher of the Year and the Naomi Grothjan Grant for Constructivist Teachers.  In his nearly 9 years of involvement with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, he has moved from being an assessor to writing content area questions, benchmarking candidate responses, and then training teachers to assess the tests using those benchmarks.  Throughout the years Mark has served on multiple committees for standards, assessment, reading, and writing and participated fully in his schools community activities.
“Informed by the wisdom earned through the trial and error of parenthood, and the hundreds of children I’ve been blessed to teach, I have one grain of truth to give. “Childhood should be a journey, not a race.”  Be assured, blink, and your child will be asking for the car keys, off to college, …married.  Share their curiosity, cherish each discovery, echo their laughter, and savor every day.  To be fresh as a facilitator of learning, it is important for me to remain engaged every day with the process, as well.  "What's new in educational ideas?” "What is important to the students?” or simply, "What interests me?” are questions that I both seek for stimulation, and model for my students.  I allow my personal pursuits of pleine aire oil painting, cooking, and poetry writing to enrich the creative environment in my classroom, convinced that in so doing I may spark the hidden fire and personal expression unique in the children I serve….” Mark Akins

Cara Davies – Educational Consultant, Owner “Write from the Start”
Cara Davies is a Colorado state licensed educator with a M.A. in Curriculum and Instruction and an ESL Endorsement.  She has worked teaching first grade, title one reading, and an adult ESL class. She volunteers for Bright Beginnings, provides tutoring services with Solutions for Students, is an educational consultant for Magic Lantern, and is currently developing workshops for parents and kids focusing on the “Experience of Writing” through her own company, “Write from the Start”.

                                     
Jeff releasing Wyoming toad tadpoles                                       Jeff and Black Footed Ferret
Photo by Joel Sartore of National Geographic

Jeff Baughman - Environmental Specialist (Consultant)
Jeff has worked at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado for the last 10 years.  He has been the lead keeper of the Conservation Center for most of that time.  The black footed ferret and Wyoming toad breeding and reintroduction programs are the bulk of his work.    Both species have at one time been declared extinct.  There were only 18 black footed ferrets remaining in 1981, but thanks to conservation efforts there are now about 1,000 animals in the wild and 250 in captive breeding programs.  The Wyoming toad was common in the early 1970’s but had a dramatic decline due to habitat loss and was declared extinct in 1994.  Only a few toads remained and the last were captured to be placed in an intensive breeding program.  Their numbers are slowly making a comeback.  He also serves as a project champion and committee member for the Quarters for Conservation program at CMZ.  In addition to his zoo work he loves to travel.  In 2001 he volunteered for a research project in Madagascar through the Earthwatch Institute. 

Magic Lantern - The Philosophy

A New Paradigm for Literacy
At Magic Lantern our concept encompasses a paradigm for literacy development that provides multiple pathways for children to learn.  A diverse range of opportunities to engage in receiving and expressing language engages each child, while honoring each child’s unique learning style, gifts and life experience.  As they become excited by the power of the written word, their hunger to communicate becomes an intrinsic motivation.  It is our goal at Magic Lantern to help “Light multiple paths to literacy”.

The complexity of becoming literate is unbelievable.  As adults we take it for granted, but the abstractions in taking sound to symbolic representation and then organizing all the rules to assist understanding is amazing.  Our language makes it even more difficult because phonetic rules have so many variables. How can you explain phonetically the word L-A-U-G-H?  Once a child has gained the understanding and skills to read and write, there are new layers of rules they must navigate.  Conventional spelling follows invented spelling.  Punctuation further clarifies meaning.  And then there are those darn capital letters.  Where the heck do they go? 

Education today looks different than it did for Baby Boomers, and even for Generation Y (born in the 80’s) or Generation X (those born between 1964-1982).  And it should.  During your last doctor’s visit, did you spy the jar of leeches on the counter, or did your fever lead to a prescribed bloodletting?  Well, it should be of no surprise that new strategies for literacy instruction have progressed from rote memory, drill and kill instructional techniques as well.  Brain research has informed our process. To honor the growth of each child’s cognitive and academic potential, we must provide multiple pathways for learning.

There are many metaphors for the process of learning and the way our brains work.  Here are a few: Learning is like a scaffold where a child makes connections between experiences, memories, and intuition to solve new problems.  Another; the brain works like a circuit board and the more connections between bits of information, the larger the capacity to learn increasingly more complex things.  Still another; the process of memory and learning is like having a giant filing room with multiple cabinets containing multiple drawers, filled with organized files where specific bits of information is stored. Whatever the analogy, as children learn they acquire more strategies to assist them along the way.  Often times a young student may have the correct strategy in their toolbox (another metaphor) but aren’t sure when or where to apply it.  Or they have mastered one strategy so well that when a confusing obstacle arises, they take security in that tool and use it inappropriately.  Educators often refer to this as generalizing to the wrong variable.

A balanced approach is needed where the learner can acquire and utilize multiple tools to break language codes. In literacy, the process of leading children toward the comprehension and expressive components of communication has come a long way from “whole language” and/or straight phonics. Most importantly, they learn best by being actively engaged in the process.  Receiving written communications, reading them, and then composing their unique responses is an advantageous process for literacy development.  Reading and listening to literature rich with the lyric of language can ultimately lead to young authors filled with pride as they write and publish their own stories.  These opportunities, as well as engaging in creative, hands-on activities such as language infused crafts and scrap-booking are possible with Magic Lantern.

It is our hope that by offering children multiple paths to literacy, they will become risk takers in their own literacy development because the pursuit of mastery is pleasurable, that their voice and heart count, and that their uniqueness contributes to a better place. My Magic Lantern can be a joyful vehicle for that journey.

Written by Mark Akins (Author and Educational Consultant to Magic Lantern) MS Education

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