Dream it covers side by side.
How we make stuff

How the book cover was illustrated

How the hand-drawn cover was conceived and illustrated, including descriptions of the thumbnails. And how this affected title of the book and website.

A colorful, when-pigs-fly birthday cake with a candle.
Crafts & Activities

Dream-Themed Birthday Party

What better present birthday present can you give than a dream? In fact, studies show that life milestones, like birthdays, rank high on almost everybody’s Bucket List, so why not make it a big one!?

OPA Review Book Review of DreamIt!
Uncategorized

Book Review by the Ohio Psychological Association

Dream It! A book review by the Ohio Psychological Association. Dreams, inspiration, creativity, passion, and imagination. In a fast-paced world where children face the pressures of standardized tests, lack downtime due to full schedules, and swap quiet time with technology, are these lost concepts?

About 500 children standing the shape of a bicycle as soon from the top of the gym roof.
Stories

Falling Uphill: The Secret of Life

This is the true story about a man who bicycles around the world questing for the secret of life. His journey is full of many wonders, but he eventually returns home discouraged—only then does he discover the secret in the last place left to look.

Dream Team at Parker Woods Montessori Elementary. The authors and University of Cincinnati facilitators.
How we make stuff

Improving social and emotional awareness using the Dream It! Playbook

Student’s using the workbook “Dream It!” had a scientifically proven, evidence-based improvement in optimistic thinking and perseverance (along with improvements in hope, growth-mindset and overall school climate) among elementary school students. Highlights from our most-important study to date, including lots of pictures and graphs.

Focus group on community learning centers with the Northside Education Committee and Cincinnati Public Schools
How we make stuff

Learning how the education system works

If you’ve been reading our website, you’ve learned that we spent a great deal of effort learning educational theory, cognitive development and psychological theory, and combining it all with our own life experiences to form a comprehensive, evidence-based process for learning how to dream and turn those dreams into reality. However, one aspect of the book that is not apparent by reading it is all the work we’ve done learning how to work within the bureaucracy of the school system, connecting with community leaders and implementing educational programs.

Mama Bunny gives Fluffy a very important letter to mail.
Stories

Fluffy Bunny

Read the original, award-winning story by our co-author, Sara, that she wrote when she was in the 4th grade. Reprinted here with an alternative ending and new illustrations by Scott.

How to dream in 3 easy steps. Step 1) Fill your bucket. Step 2) Sort your treasure. Step 3) Build a dream.
Uncategorized

How to Teach Kids to Dream in 3 Steps

Wow! What another big honor. We got a story in the preeminent blog for psychologists. This article gives a great breakdown of the dream process and all the concepts are highlighted, so you can really dig deep. You also learn more about our philosophy that drove the creation of the book. Yay! Below is an excerpt.

Book with pages bent into the shape of a heart.
How we make stuff

Curated Articles on Educational Psychology

During the creation of our first book, we spent countless hours researching. And we also ran our own research project. During the way, we ran across a lot of great ideas that got lost, so we thought we should begin collecting the best of the best articles we have read.

Doctor Sara Williams at the American Psychological Association's annual conference
How we make stuff

Improving Children’s Optimistic Thinking by Teaching them to Dream about Life Goals

We were honored to attend the American Psychological Associations 2018 annual conference to present the results of our study. This is a new analysis of our data that, essentially, says that young students perform better when they are taught the basics of socioemotional skills, like passion and goal setting, first before more academic subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic.

3D cake sculpture of the main character in the "Dream It! Playbook" and the authors Sara E. Williams and Scott Stoll
Dream Heroes

A cake decorator’s dream come true…

A story about how our hero made her dream come true of being a cake decorator. Featuring a 3D cake bust of the main character of our new book — Dream It!

Scott and Sara seeing the total solar eclipse 2017. The most amazing moment of our lives!
How we make stuff

Interview with the authors

Learn how and why Sara and Scott do what they do. An interview with their publisher, Magination Press.

Step #3: Play it! Take a step of action to make your dreams real.

Take a step of action to help make dreams come true.

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