Children's Book Review, Night Watch

Children's Book Review by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com

Night Watch is a children's picture book written by Phil Cummings, illustrated by Janine Dawson and published by Working Title Press (2013.)

Giraffe, Elephant, Hippo and Baboon all live by the lake, happily going about their own business, until one day Giraffe spies the shadow of Lion - prowling, creeping, stalking, sneaking. What are they to do now?

Cummings has given us a polished gem of a picture book story. He shows us the contented lives of Giraffe, Elephant, Hippo and Baboon, their happiness, the noises they make and the way they respect their animal neighbours without living in their pockets. That all changes the day Giraffe sees something - prowling…creeping…stalking…sneaking. Lion slinks away but the animals know he'll be back. And that's when Baboon gets an idea.

Dawson's lively, illustrations are full of character. They really add to the humour of the text and the drama of each situation. Kids will particularly enjoy the giant scary shadow page!

Recommended for ages 3 - 6, I think Night Watch will make a fine inclusion to a library's resource box on the theme of bullying. Kids will draw the parallel between Lion and other bullies, and rejoice when he is trounced by Baboon's plan. The book also serves as a prompt to talking to kids about shadows and shadow theatre. Night Watch makes a fun read-aloud and is a perfect choice to follow up with  improvisation or reader's theatre.

Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook by clicking Reviews in the right sidebar.

Have Fun with Fungooms

Have Fun with Fungooms

by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com

Lots of parents I know try to balance the amount of screen time their kids get. I think that's an excellent idea. Sometimes kids lives are so switched on, or so full of extra-curricular activities, that they don't get much time for two very important things: creative play and sharing books. However, when it IS screen time, it's nice to have options for screen activities that are gentle, entertaining and wholesome. So I'm always on the look out for such options when I wander around the internet.

Recently I stumbled across Fungooms and wanted to tell you about it. At Fungooms.com, each Fungoom character has a studio, where kids can try different activities. For instance, in Looe's studio, kids can change Looe (starry head dress character in top screen grab image) to make a different-looking Looe - an avatar that can be printed out. You can check out the new Looe I created, below left.

There's also a cog puzzle which becomes a bed time clock, balloons to inflate, children to tickle, a virtual felt board to arrange, and a sculpture to reveal. Mena's studio has stories for kids to watch/listen to. Bodmin's room has games pre-schoolers will love - e.g. cars that collect letters of the alphabet and whales that bump numbers. Other Fungooms also have studios for kids to explore, encouraging mouse use and prediction.

The Fungooms website reminds me of Poisson Rouge in some ways - it's a nice place for kids to explore with their parents and giggle over things together. There are ads but they aren't intrusive. The music is gentle, relaxing. There are no directions, just an implied invitation for kids to explore, experiment and create.

You can find out more about Fungooms via the video below.



If you're interested in websites that encourage creativity and target pre-schoolers, you might like to read:
Create with Fish - Poisson Rouge
Little Treasures
Preschool Learning - The Play School Website
Playing with Art at CBeebies

Let's Prepare Our Kids for the Future

Let's Prepare Our Kids for the Future 

by Susan Stephenson

Regular readers of The Book Chook will have picked up by now that I believe strongly in the importance of play as the way kids learn best. When children start school, I think we should maintain this attitude of learning through play as much as possible. It seems a no-brainer to me that kids learn best when enjoying themselves, and when they're engaged in thinking creatively and critically about their learning.

Recently, I watched a video that suggested education is NOT preparing kids for their lives in the future. Kids may be learning to pass multiple choice tests, but are they acquiring the skills they will need to adapt, create, design, hypothesize, and innovate in their future jobs? Many jobs in the future haven't been invented yet, so all we know is that children will need to think divergently, not colour in the bubbles of a test paper.

I hope you'll take the 12 minutes to watch this TEDxCreativeCoast video below. Maybe we can't all have website designers in the classroom to guide our kids. But I believe we can include design tasks in our curriculum and creative thinking skills in our lessons that empower our young people and give them respect as our fellow learners.



You might also be interested in Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, Children's Creativity and Play, and Activities for Children's Book Week, 2013.

Children's Book Review, Once Upon a Slime

Children's Book Review by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com

Once Upon a Slime was written by Andy Griffiths, illustrated by Terry Denton and published by Pan Macmillan (2013).

- Have you ever wondered where ideas come from and how stories are made?

- Would you like to know the true stories behind some of Andy and Terry's books and characters?

- Are you looking for simple, practical and inspiring writing activities?

- Would you like to discover 45 great ways to have fun with words and pictures?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then this is definitely the right book for you!

Designed for teachers, students and young aspiring writers, Once Upon a Slime contains 45 fun writing and storytelling activities, such as lists, instructions, cartoons, personal stories, poems and pocket books.

Examples from Andy and Terry's books are used throughout to demonstrate techniques and to inspire readers to have as much fun playing with ideas, words and pictures as Andy and Terry do when they get together to create their crazy books.

Who better for kids to learn about real writing from than a real author? Andy Griffiths is not just real, he's a household name in children's literature all over the world. But let's face it, his qualifications and reputation are not what will make kids grab this book. They will enjoy the fun, the nonsense, the visual gags, and the fantastic Denton-style cartoons. Unbeknownst to them, wedged between the tight underpants and Little Green Snotting Hood, they'll pick up excellent tips for getting started as writers. Suggestions and models like fake news articles, crazy quizzes, creating superheroes, jokes, cartoons and even a random idea generator will have kids itching to create - wonderful idea!

This 350-page book makes a great gift for young writers who want to learn more about the craft of writing. Griffiths fans will appreciate the way their hero provides explanations and comments on his creative process and life. Teachers will love it too - there are so many truly fun ideas that will get their students writing. I guess the sentence that resonated with me most was this: "You don't have to be a great artist - or a great speller - to be able to have a great time with words and pictures." Encouraging kids to play with words and images is a truly worthwhile thing for we parents and teachers to do. Thank you, Andy!

Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook by clicking Reviews in the right sidebar.

Create Stories at Storyboard That

Create Stories at Storyboard That

by Susan Stephenson, www.thebookchook.com

Storyboard That offers an online place for kids to create digital stories. Its main purpose is as a visual aid for communicators e.g. in the business area, but it would also make a useful place for kids to storyboard short videos or plan other projects. Telling digital stories that include speech bubbles is an excellent way to sneak some writing into kids' play. Younger kids will just have fun expressing themselves visually with a range of characters and other elements.

To start: choose between 3 or 6 cells (frames). Once you've decided, Storyboard That is similar to most comic editors, offering you backgrounds (scenes), characters, speech bubbles (textables) and wireframes (screens and widgets.)

There's a good variety of characters - select adults, youngins, silhouettes, funky and animals. Drag any element to a cell, and then you can edit it via a pop-up menu.

You need to create an account to save your work. With the free plan, you can save up to three storyboards a day. A storyboard can be embedded into a blog, emailed, and exported into PowerPoint. The PPT option is not much use unless you upgrade from the free account, as it's hugely watermarked by the site. I did embed the Storyboard I made, but it was much too wide for my blog, and I couldn't see how to alter the width in the html. So what you see above is a screen grab.

There are also a couple of useful pages with tips, FAQ, and lesson plans.

If you're interested in digital storytelling with kids, you might like to download my free PDF, Using Comic Editors with Kids.