Behind the Scenes of Alpha Academy: What We Loved Most and the Challenges We Overcame
Creating Alpha Academy has been one of the most rewarding — and humbling — experiences I’ve shared with my kids. It’s more than just a book to us. It’s a reflection of our journey that began with our family business, House Of Playful Soul, where we focused on cultivating a space that created connection, offered cultivated learning & development for young families and gave back to the community. This book series gave our family a full circle moment since we closed three years ago. If you thought writing a book with your kids is fun, IT IS! If you thought writing a book with your kids is hard, IT IS! Today, I wanted to share three of our favorite parts of bringing this book to life — and three big challenges we had to overcome along the way.
Their Favorite Parts of Creating Alpha Academy
- Watching Handwritten Letters Become Characters
It was pure magic for the kids to see the letters they had hand written get turned into real, illustrated characters. Each letter developed its own personality and they loved playing around with color choices. My 10 year old is even planning to bring some to life after learning stop motion at school!
- Designing Every Detail
From picking the colors for each letter character to adding little elements on each page to bring the text to life, the design process was a favorite for all of us. They loved debating over which colors “fit” each letter’s personality and dreaming up creative details that would make each page feel special and fun.
- Editing the Story — Kid Style!
As much as I thought I knew what kids would like, my kids made it clear when my ideas didn’t land! They had strong opinions on what was “cool” or “boring,” and I had to learn to let them take the lead. Their fresh ideas shaped the story in ways I never could have done on my own, and our hope is the book is so much more relatable and fun for other kids.
But as we know, all good things come with their share of challenges. It was a process but here are the primary ones we had to work through.
- Letting Go of My Own Expectations
As a type-A person with a clear vision in my head, this was one of the hardest parts for me. I had to constantly remind myself that this wasn’t my book — it was our book. I had to step back and give them space to explore their ideas, even if it looked different from what I originally imagined. In the end, trusting them made the book so more authentic to their voices.
- Balancing Creative Control Between Three Kids
Each of my kids has their own unique creative spark — and strong opinions! There were definitely some “territory battles” along the way. To give everyone a chance to shine, I decided to let them each take turns choosing letters to have creative control over. This helped ensure everyone felt heard and valued in the process. I don’t know my house would have survived otherwise.
- Making Time for Meaningful Work Together
Time was (and still is) one of our biggest hurdles. Between school, homework, soccer, dance, playdates, birthday parties, and more, life is busy. I realized early on that squeezing in book work between activities never felt good and didn’t lead to work or experiences any of us were proud of. So instead, I made a conscious effort to carve out dedicated, meaningful time where we could truly focus and enjoy creating together. I always told them ahead of time so they felt prepared and could engage fully.
Looking back, this project has been about so much more than just creating a book. It’s been about learning life lessons, growing together, learning from each other, and creating something that holds all of our fingerprints — literally and figuratively. We’ve laughed, argued, and imagined whole worlds together. The process wasn’t always smooth, but it brought us closer and we’ll always have this shared experience and accomplishment to look back on.
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