Your Buddieville Questions, Answered

What is Buddieville and how does it work?

Buddieville is a growing learning world where friendly characters help children explore, discover and learn through stories, activities and hands-on play.

Each group of Buddies has its own special way of helping children learn. The first residents of Buddieville are The 5 W’riting Buddies™, who help young learners discover how stories are built by exploring WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW.

As Buddieville grows, new Buddies, new neighborhoods and new learning adventures will join the community — giving children more ways to learn while having fun.

Who are The 5 W’riting Buddies™ and how do they work?

The 5 W'riting Buddies is a hands-on storytelling and early writing system that helps young children learn how stories are built — one question at a time.

The 5 W’riting Buddies™ each represent an important story-building question: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY, with HOWard helping children discover HOW it all comes together.

Children choose and organize Story Tiles, answer each Buddy’s question, and then use their choices to create a story of their own. Through books, colorful characters, Story Tiles and writing activities, Buddieville turns the sometimes-overwhelming idea of “write a story” into a simple, visual, step-by-step adventure.

How do children use the Story Tiles?

Choose a tile from each Buddy category to build the pieces of a story. Put each in a row as selected. Then have child write their choices on the MY STORY sheet in the appropriate Buddy block. This will act as an easy reference for the child to write their story.

What are the Buddy Pockets/Bags for?

They keep each group of Story Tiles organized so children can choose WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY.

What does HOWard do?

HOWard helps children think about HOW the pieces come together into a complete story.

Do I need special training to use it?

No. It's designed to be simple for parents, homeschool families and teachers.