01 / Place
Start where you live.
Harmony Pond is every pond, marsh, and dune slack a student can walk to. The lesson begins outside the classroom door.
Illustrated children's book
GARY IS A FISH
A fully illustrated children's book and a set of companion classroom worksheets. Gary leaves a crowded city lake for Harmony Pond and learns that a good home is something you look after together. Now available on Amazon and Books-A-Million.
Gary, blowing questions · From the book
Where Gary came from
A mascot for the Dunes.
Gary is a Fish began as a creative lesson plan while Ty was teaching at the Charter School of the Dunes in Gary, Indiana. The goal was an unofficial mascot and an ensemble of characters who could pull kids into project-based work, collective work, and the job of looking after the place they live. The lesson grew into a story, the story grew into a book, and the character sheets became worksheets.
What the project made
EnsembleGary, Chuck, Jane, and K-B, each drawn with a full character sheet.
The bookA fully illustrated picture book, now in print. Story by Nancy & Ty Bush. Illustrations by Ryan Smith & Ty Bush.
ClassroomFree worksheets for project-based lessons on place and stewardship.
In the classroom / Charter School of the Dunes
Animal work in the gym.
Ty took the actor's studio into the gym. Stanislavski's animal work met Viola Spolin's improvisational games, the same games Spolin built at Chicago's Hull House for Depression-era children carrying real trauma. Students studied the native species of the Indiana Dunes, then became them: how each one moves, rests, and survives.
The work grew out of Ty's graduate study in communication at Purdue University Northwest, rooted in advocacy, social justice, and leadership in a community living with trauma. Fitness and yoga folded in. Every animal opened a door to its habitat, the pressures on it, and what it takes to keep home in Gary, Indiana alive.
This is STEAM taught as one integrated lesson. Gary, Harmony Pond, and the Dunes became the thematic throughline of the whole school day, carried into every subject a child tackles, so the story, the science, the art, and the movement all pointed at the same place: home.
From the sketchbook / Early concepts
It starts in pencil.
Ty's first concept sketches of Gary and Chuck, drawn by hand before either character was built in Illustrator for the book.
Toolkit / Agile production
Learn the tool by making the thing.
Every Cinderbox world starts with a tool Ty doesn't know yet. The story sets the problem, the software becomes the lesson. Agile fundamentals provides a way of working toward solving problems with empathy, humility, and a commitment to continuous improvment. Let the story show you the way.
The challenge
Illustrate and lay out a full children's book, then turn its character sheets into classroom worksheets.
Built with
Now exploring
For the classroom / Free worksheets
Teach from the pond.
The character sheets from the book double as printable worksheets. Each one pairs a portrait and profile with the character's home environment, a learning-style chart, and a row of action poses, ready to start discussion and student projects.
The lesson
Care for a place, together.
The Indiana Dunes hold an uncommon mix of beach, dune, marsh, and pond, all within sight of the city and the mills. Gary's move from a crowded lake to Harmony Pond gives young readers a way into that landscape, and into the idea that a healthy place is shared work.
Built for
Elementary classrooms, project-based learning, and environmental science units. Read the book, then work the sheets.
Read
Read Gary is a Fish aloud. Talk about why Gary leaves the city lake and what he finds at Harmony Pond.
Meet
Hand out a character sheet. Each has a portrait, a short profile, and a chart of how that character learns: visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic.
Environment
Look at where the character lives. Then find a pond, dune, or wetland near school and ask what that place needs.
Action
Study the character's action poses, then have students plan one thing they can do to care for their place, on their own and as a group.
02 / Ensemble
Everyone brings something.
Gary longs for community. Chuck does the work others won't. Jane doubts her own worth. Different strengths, one pond.
03 / Stewardship
Care is collective work.
Projects end with a real action, planned and carried out together. Stewardship is practiced, not just discussed.
Free download / PDF, letter size
The worksheets
Print one per student or one per group. Each sheet opens as a PDF.
Get the book
Gary is a Fish
How far must a little fish go… to find a friend?
Follow Gary as he leaves the big city to find a new life in calm and quiet Harmony Pond. Along the way he makes new friends who teach him how to take good care of himself and enjoy his surroundings, building a special circle of hard working, interesting, loving companions who celebrate life.
Story by Nancy & Ty Bush
Illustrations by Ryan Smith & Ty Bush
Published by AuthorHouse
▶ WatchWatch the talk / TEDxIndianapolis
Forging new narratives in a post-industrial region.
The role of an artist in society is to open the way: to offer an entry into what comes next, to share the lessons, and to venture into new frontiers, leading through servant leadership. The same ideas run through the Gary is a Fish learning materials, built to help children in Gary, Indiana dream big, act with character, and tell their own stories, drawn from lived experience in their own communities rather than dictated by outside voices.