Create with Fish - Poisson Rouge

I read about Poisson Rouge (Red Fish) at Imagination Soup, and immediately checked it out. I had to skip washing my windows because I got so busy playi...er, researching there.

Some simpler activities at Poisson Rouge might not interest over sixes immediately, but it's worth them exploring deeper into this site for real gems. Younger kids will enjoy just clicking or scrolling over pictures on the main page to see what activities arise! There are heaps of things to activate and interact with. You can play guitar chords, make a machine, experiment with algorisms, and sing along with the choir.

There's an English school where kids can see and hear common words in English, and similarly one in French. (École d'Anglais and École de Français.)

Explanations are in French, but there is an index of activities within. Basically the French tells you to click on anything and everything to see what will happen. Isn't that the method most of us use? You can't really go wrong by clicking on the thumbnails.

The Book Chook's favourite activities? Being able to get four little animations singing Frère Jacques as a round, composing a song on the piano and seeing the score written for me above, playing a board game (Jeu de Plateau) against the computer, and sliding my mouse over the night sky to see the constellations light up.

This is a wholesome, fun, and creative site. I think your kids would love it!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13533187@N00/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

So Creative, It's Spooky

In Australia, we have a TV show called Spicks and Specks which is one of the few I watch. It's a quiz show about music. It's also much more than that. Last night, they introduced me to my new favourite choral group: The Spooky Men's Chorale.

"What has this got to do with literacy?" I hear you cry. Not much...except that the Spooky Men had a contest where they invited people to make a video clip using one of their songs. I want to show you two of the video clips. They have inspired me to make more of an effort to learn to use video to tell a story.

First place in their contest went to Ghost Riders.

I love those muppets, and the skill with which they did the scene transitions. It remained true to the song despite Australian landscape and mastodons.

Second place was actually my favourite: Don't Stand Between a Man and His Tool. The creator drew his pictures in Paint, and animated them with Adobe Premiere. It's a deceptively simple but clever rendition. You might want to check it first before your kids see it, but it didn't offend The Book Chook. I love the humour in this, and the way it stays true to the song, but also adds quirky details. The drawings might not be fine art, but they are certainly a fine example of communication that works.

I also love the Spooky Men version of Not Pretty Enough.

Music is such a powerful tool to spark creative activities like writing and art. Maybe your animation skills are on a par with mine, so you could settle for the easier path and help your child create a story with one of the many online story makers I mentioned this week. They will still be learning lots of skills - writing appropriate captions, choosing music, experimenting with order, titles and extras.

But if you have a video camera, why not explore some ways of creating a story with it? Ever since cavemen sat around a fire and told yarns, humans have been preoccupied with story. Aren't sculpture, dance, comics, poetry, photography, and book trailers all ways of transmitting some kind of story? Involving your kids in something like this allows them to experience the creative process as apprentices, and may very well lead to a deep and abiding love for all types of story later in their lives.

Meanwhile, I'm off to buy a Spooky Men CD.

Coming Soon, Literacy Lava 3

The next issue of Literacy Lava will be published on December 1 (Australian Time). You'll find the link right here at The Book Chook. Again, it's exploding with great ideas for parents and others who care about children's literacy.

Find out what your local library has to offer, read ideas on making books with kids, sneak some learning into shopping, discover games that build literacy skills, develop imagination while playing Grocery Store, make writing part of your family’s life, read why picture books are so good for kids, and find out how literacy helped one child fight night terrors. Don’t forget to check out the Online Extras page, and the Writing Prompt activity page for kids.

Literacy Lava 3, get it while it's HOT!

Online Story Maker - Photoshow

Regular readers of The Book Chook (blowing kisses to you all!) may have noticed my fascination with web spaces that encourage us to create stories. I've described PhotoPeach, Storybird, Cartoonist at Creaza, Little Bird Tales, love2read, My Story Maker, Glogster, Myths and Legends, MakeBeliefsComix, and more - all of them accessible to kids with a little parental guidance. If you're new to The Book Chook, you can read why I believe these publishing opportunities are so valuable at my post, What's the Deal with Online Publishing?

Today I want to tell you about a new one. It's called Photoshow. It is similar to PhotoPeach in that it allows you to upload photos from your computer and other places, add captions and other bits to them, then publish them as a slideshow. I timed myself yesterday and it took me half an hour to learn the ropes and create the digital story, After the Storm, that you can see below. This is more a testament to Photoshow's user-friendliness than my technological ability. You can try it out without signing up, but it will prompt you to sign up if you want to save your creation.

Photoshow does have a little more bling than PhotoPeach. You can add stickers (I added the little white dog in my story), borders, and captions to each slide. There isn't a wide choice of music or bling in a free account - for those options, you need to pay ($40/year). But the free option is perfectly adequate for telling a simple story with images and captions. Although Photoshow doesn't have PhotoPeach's option of adding a quiz to your slideshow, I urge you to consider it as another place where kids can write for an authentic audience, even if that audience is only Dad and Grandma!


Update, February 10. It seems a free account with Photostory means your slideshow only lasts for 30 days. After that, you get the black screen of death. 

Book Review, The Jolly Postman or Other People's Letters

When I was teaching young primary school kids, I loved introducing picture books to my classes that motivated them to write. One of my favourites was The Jolly Postman, by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, (Heinemann, London, 1986).

Our copy, gifted to my son in 1990, has a hard cover, the size of an envelope. Inside is the story of a postman, and the letters he delivers to different characters living in fairyland.

The first is for Mr and Mrs Bear. The page is an actual envelope, stamped and addressed, and inside is an actual folded paper which is a letter from Goldilocks, beautifully presented with child-like drawings and spelling.

The next letter is addressed to:
The Occupier
Gingerbread Bungalow
The Woods
and inside is a flyer advertising "everything for the modern witch". Followup discussions about the kinds of material people receive by mail invariably mentioned this one. What fun to imagine the sorts of mail characters like Georgie Porgie would receive!

The third is a postcard for
Mr V.Bigg
Mile High House
Beanstalk Gardens.
I love the way the Ahlbergs give lots of hints about recipients and leave room for speculation without needing to spell everything out.

There are more letters, interwoven with the postman's journey and reaction to his customers. The text that links each letter is rhyming-ish, but the standout feature is definitely the letters. It's not an easy book to read aloud, because of all the stopping to remove and read each communication. That has never been a problem for me, even though I look upon reading aloud as a performance. Children just love the real letters, love to unfold them and examine them and dream about them. Performance is not as important as passion.

Another reason I love this book is the Ahlberg's attention to detail. For example, the letter to B.B.Wolf is typed, with a legal heading:
Meeny, Miny, Mo & Co., Solicitors
Alley O Buildings, Toe Lane, Tel:12345
and is signed by Harold Meeny in a cursive font. In the witch flyer, there's an ad for a non-stick cauldron, with free recipe for Toad in the hole. Some of the humour was initially above a five-year-old's head, but after discussion and explanation when we'd finished the story, I would hear children pointing out the details to each other. (My chickens are now coming home to roost, because these days my 22-year-old has to explain the humour of some jokes to me!)

There are many ways to use this book as a springboard, whether at home or at school. Letter writing is motivating when you have a reason to communicate with someone (authentic audience), and my young students loved to write each other letters. We used a classroom tricycle for delivery sometimes, or the class mailbox (recycled shoe box.) We wrote letters to our favourite literary characters, letters to the school principal, letters to relatives, and letters to penpals.

Older students wrote letters from literary characters, taking on a role and trying to use language that suited the chosen character. They wrote letters to the editor of our local newspaper when something roused their passion. We studied fairy tales and nursery rhymes and investigated their place in history and in literature. They also used The Jolly Postman as a model for their own picture books, complete with inner envelopes and folded letters.

Do keep an eye open for this one. From what I can work out, my copy is now out of print, but Amazon seems to be offering the same book with a different cover. I highly recommend it as a resource for home, and for classrooms where kids look after books.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/infatuated/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

World Hello Day

Do you know what day it is today? It's World Hello Day! This day was started in response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel in 1973. People use it as a way to express their desire for world peace.

Today would be a great time to look at some different cultures with your kids. Dawn Morris at MomsInspireLearning has some wonderful ideas for using Picture Books for Peace. To develop tolerance, we need to "walk a mile in another's shoes", and literature helps us understand how other people live, feel and dream.

How many different ways can you say hello?

I counted six for me:
Ni hao (Chinese)
Bom dia (Portugese)
Hola (Spanish)
Bonjour (French)
Guten Tag (German)

Selamat pagi (Bahasa Indonesia)

(Oh wait, if Pig Latin counts, I can do seven. But I've never met a latin pig!)

Kids love to learn snippets of other languages. I found a page at the Internet Public Library where there are links to hello in several other languages, as well as the fascinating fact that if you want to say hello to everyone in the world, you need to greet 5,720,000,000 people.

[Actually, I checked that population statistic at World Clock, and spent minutes gaping at the population changing upward before my eyes. Phew!]

A great followup activity would be to use an atlas to find some countries you know. Maybe you could pick one country your child would like to learn about and focus on discovering more about their customs, clothing and traditional dress, flag, food, geography etc. Can you improvise a costume or create one of that country's dishes?

Here's a fun hello rhyme to teach your kids. I use it as question and response, or as a choral piece with a class.

Hello Hello Hello Sir
Meet me at the grocer
No Sir
Why Sir
Because I have a cold, Sir.
Where did you get your cold?
At the North Pole, Sir.
Let me hear you sneeze, Sir.
Atchoo, atchoo, atchoo, Sir.

I also found a cute Hello Song on Youtube, and The Beatles' Hello Hello with captions.

Another great family project would be to create a caption book called Hello with your child. Choose pictures of him with things and people he loves, and use captions like "Hello bike", "Hello Nanny", "Hello horse" etc. Older kids could use a web tool such as Photo Peach to keep a record of all the foreign greetings they've learnt. They might also like to make a little quiz show to test their friends. Here's one I've begun - you're welcome to edit it and add your own.

World Hello Day on PhotoPeach

Photo credit above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaredchapman/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Extra photo credits in the slide show:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nusatenggara/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreama/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Mutapic

Oh dear! After going public yesterday in my blog comments about reining in my obsession with web 2.0 gems, I stumbled across Mutapic again. The first time I found this web site, I dismissed it, as I had no idea what I was doing. The only thing I was sure of was that I couldn't explain how to use this image generator to readers of The Book Chook.

Last night I found it when I was searching through my bookmarks, and gave it another chance.

My conclusion? I still have no idea what I'm doing but IT'S FUN! There are three big buttons on the left, a row of filters, a screen of tiles, and some cryptic icons on the right. The top big green button generates images - don't press it yet. Go to the button below and choose 1, or 16 or F. 1 brings up 1 icon, 16 brings up 16 icons. F? Yikes, maybe it's the self-destruct button? No, it brings up more icons. Click on an icon and you get more. Click on one of those and you select it. I think.

Then go to the bottom button and fool around similarly. Once you have one icon on one big button and one on the other, choose some filters by clicking on them. Fewer is better. I like tint and one other. Then you get to push the big green button. Once it generates your images, try changing the filters one at a time and re-generate until you get something you're happy with. If you have multiple icons in one of the buttons, you get a whole different looking set of images. My top panel is one icon in each button; the lower panel is one icon in one, and multiple icons in the second.

I guess basically it's like most things computer, you click and press buttons and play, until you gain some inkling of what you're doing. One of the cryptic icons is information, and if you want to find out more, I discovered right at the end that the question mark holds some clues. Now why didn't I think of that?

I think kids would love this free tool. No, I can't actually think of a literacy application for it, but what a cool way to play with colours, images and pattern. Take a look at the Mutapic Gallery to see what others have created. Sadly, you can't save your work unless you pay for the professional version. It's $30 and I am seriously tempted.

Except I said I was reining in my obsession!

Happy Birthday, Book Chook

Today I am celebrating a birthday. The Book Chook blog first arrived at Blogger one year ago. In those twelve months, I have been thrilled not just to see the number of my readers and followers increase, but also to have the chance to get to know them. I want to thank you all for your support, and hope we can continue celebrating our love for children’s literature and literacy into 2010.

As my gift to you, I have made a mini book of the skipping and clapping rhymes, the chants and songs from my Literacy in the Playground posts. I hope you’ll give it to the children in your life, not just for literacy’s sake, but so they can have as much FUN playing as we did!

You can download the mini book as a pdf from my website, by clicking on the cover.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiritmama/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Literacy in the Playground (4)

As well as favourite games in Literacy in the Playground (1), we've looked at clapping games in Literacy in the Playground (2), and skipping games in Literacy in the Playground (3). These next games involve songs, chants, movement and, as usual, lots of fun.

The first was sent in by Farida Dowler of Saints and Spinners.

"This is a game my daughter learned at her Waldorf school. I like it because it reminds me of the Three Wise Men, and because it’s a cooperative game. While the group is saying “NO!” the first two times to the three travelers, those three children on the outside form a support-team as such. No one is singled out.

We Are Three Wandering Travelers

The group forms a circle. Three children “travel” outside of the circle, walking around it as everyone sings:

We are three wandering travelers
Out in the wind and the rain
We saw your light, shining so bright,
Tapped on your window pane, saying,
“Let us come in, let us come in,
Into your house we pray.
Let us come in, let us come in,
Please do not turn us away.”
NO!

Repeat two more times. However, on the third time, respond with “YES!”

The three children go inside the circle and everyone sings:

You may come in, you may come in,
Into our house we pray.
You may come in, you may come in,
We will not turn you away.
YES!"

Here's another lovely circle game from Joseph (aged 5).

Doggy, Doggy Where's your Bone?

All the children sit in a circle. One child sits in the middle, huddles down, shuts their eyes and must not peek! This child is the 'doggy'.

Once that child's eyes are closed, the circle of children selects one of their number (by raising eyebrows or pointing enthusiastically at each other so as to stay quiet!) to hold the dog's bone. They hide it in their lap (or if it's small, in their hand). Then everyone sings:

Doggy doggy where's your bone?
Someone stole it from your home!

The doggy sings (muffled, from their huddled spot and without opening their eyes!):

Who stole my bo -o-o-ne?

The child who has it replies:

I stole your bo-o-ne!

Then the doggy is allowed to sit up and open eyes and see if he/she can guess who the thief is. If they guess correctly, they can remain doggy. If they get it wrong, the thief becomes the new dog. [In Joseph's class, the doggy can have 2 guesses.]

If you'd like an idea of the tune, try the notes on this virtual keyboard.

Dog-gy Dog-gy where's your bone?
A A F# F# A A F#
Someone stole it from your home
A A F# F# A A F#
Who stole my bo-one?
A F# B A F#
I stole your bo-one!
A F# B A F#

The Cookie Jar

I've played this circle game with preschoolers, and with teenagers in an ESL class. It's a lot of fun. Mostly we just clap the the beat. It keeps going until everyone has had enough.

leader: Who stole the cookie from the cook-cookie jar?
(name of a child in the circle, A) stole the cookie from the cook-cookie jar.
child A: Who me?
group: Yes, you!
child A: Couldn't be!
group: Then who?
child A: (name of a child in the circle, B) stole the cookie from the cook-cookie jar.
child B: Who me?
(etc)

Kim Chatel from Chatel Village knows a different version:

Cookie Jar

"This is a group chant. It can be done with clapping too. Everyone picks a number. If a person doesn’t respond to his number he is out of the game.

(Sing all together)
Zing! Zing! Zoom! Zoom!
My little heart goes boom!
Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
(Leader begins and chooses a number. That person responds)
Was it you, number 2?
Who me?
Yes, you.
Couldn’t be.
Then who?
Number 4.
Who me?
Yes, you.
Couldn’t be.
Then who?
Number 1.
Etc.

Here's an old favourite, sent in by Rebecca Newman, editor of Alphabet Soup.

I Wrote a Letter

"When I was about 8 I used to love playing 'I wrote a letter to my mother'. We all sat in a circle with hands behind our backs and one person had a handkerchief (or other object,) to be the letter. That person (who was 'it') skipped around the circle while everyone sang (to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle Dandee'):

I wrote a letter to my mother,
on the way I dropped it
Someone must have picked it up
and put it in their pocket

[Then chant tunelessly, over and over until next step of game] Thief, thief, drop it!

When the person who is 'it' drops the handkerchief (or object) into someone's hands, that person leaps up and chases the person who is 'it' back around the circle and back to their place. If they catch 'it', then 'it' has to sit down. But if 'it' makes it back to their tagged friend's spot first, then 'it' can be 'it' for another round.

My children play this with their friends but they sing different words to the same tune:

Lucy Locket lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it
But there was no penny in it
Just a ribbon round it

Claire Saxby, whose latest picture book, Sheep, Goat and the Creaking Gate, I reviewed recently, loved that one too.

Kim Chatel, from Chatel Village, also sent this great singing game.

Singing in the Rain
(Sung to the tune of “Singing in the Rain.”)

I’m singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling
I’m happy again.
Thumbs up!
Patoo-patat, Patoo-patat, Patoo-pata-TA!

Kim says, "Repeat the verse 6 times. Line 6 changes each time. Begin standing up. When you get to line 6, act out the body action (ie: stick both thumbs up). Start with the thumbs up. Keep your thumbs up throughout the next verse then add elbows back. Accumulate the body actions until the end when you’re so twisted you can barely sing or move. Very funny! Here is the list of body actions for line 6 or you can add your own.
Thumbs up
Elbows back
Knees together
Butt out
Head down
Tongue out"

(The Book Chook would love to publish a photo of you doing the one above!)

When I was a child at our church camp, this was a favourite chant. Each line is said by the leader, then repeated by the group, while everybody claps their own thighs then hands for the beat.

Flea
Flea Fly
Flea Fly Flo
Vista
Coo-ma-la, Coo-ma-la, Coo-ma-la Vista
Oh no-no, no, not the vista
Eenie, meenie, decimeenie, oo walla walla meenie!
Ex a meenie, zall a meenie, oo walla wa!
Beep billy oaten doaten oh bo ba beaten doaten shh!

Why not use the model above so you and your kids can create your own chant from nonsense words? Or check out my recent posts about using Nonsense with kids, Oh, What Nonsense! and More Nonsense.

With the increasing commercialization of play in the last fifty years, we seem to have somehow come to believe that for play, kids need a toy, or a video game. I think toys and video games are fine so long as we keep a balance. Encouraging kids to use their imaginations, and play with friends, helps with that balance, as well as providing opportunities for fresh air and exercise.

Clapping can be done with just one friend, while skipping games mostly require three and a rope. The songs and chants above are heaps of fun, and contribute to children's literacy skills. Let's help our kids learn more games that are fun, social and educational.

Coming November 17 to celebrate The Book Chook's birthday, my gift to you: a free mini book of the songs, rhymes and chants from these Literacy in the Playground posts!

Update: Grab your copy as a free pdf from my website.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wumpiewoo/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Surfing the Google Wave

Have you heard about Google Wave? Maybe you might remember my post, Goggling over Google Wave, when I mentioned being really excited about its advent? Well, it's here and I've been playing with it.

Google Wave is the latest Google invention. It's a web application and a computing platform. It's also a realtime conversation and a document. To me so far, it's like a morph of IM and email, with bling. The bling is all sorts of things you can embed in your communication, like "bots" that will translate into other languages, maps, games, polls, videos etc. There's a heap of stuff on Youtube about it if you'd like to discover more, and Google themselves have lots of information about it.

This is early stages for Google Wave, and some things have been unstable, or confusing. However, it's been a lot of fun trying it out, and I'm thrilled by its potential. I believe it will be so useful for anyone who needs to collaborate over documents. After you invite people to join your wave, and they're there, you can see each other typing in real time, edit each other's work, add in links and other documents instantly.

I think kids will enjoy the application of new technologies in Google Wave. It makes a cool way to communicate over a social engagement (writing for an authentic audience!), and will really benefit teens who need to work on an assignment together, but are physically apart (writing for an authentic audience AND impressing the teacher!)

If you'd like to preview Google Wave for yourself, but don't have an invitation, email me via the tab up near my banner. Send me your email address, and I'll start an invitation to participate in the GWave preview wending its way toward you (via the Google Wave site.) If you'd rather wait until all the kinks are out, that makes good sense too. Me? I'm like a kid in a candy store!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tk_five_0/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Reader's Theatre (2)

In Reader's Theatre (1), I described my version of Reader's Theatre, and said that it's a great way to have kids interact with a story, and to develop their imaginations. I also love the fact that it allows kids who NEED to move the opportunity to link reading with movement. It's a fun activity for emergent readers when the script is kept simple, and they have enough chance to rehearse their part. And it's a wonderful chance for readers and audience to interact with literature.

If I'm creating a Reader's Theatre script, I usually write parts for narrator(s), characters, and a chorus. That's because my scripts are written with the classroom teacher in mind, and teachers usually need to find parts for thirty kids. If there is a lot of narration, I divide it as evenly as possible, with narrators taking turns.

So my script might look like this:

Script Snippet, based on The Three Bears

Narrator 1: Once upon a time, there were three bears who lived in a little cottage in the woods.

Narrator 2: Each morning, Mama Bear would put their porridge into three bowls.

Papa: A great big bowl for me, because I'm a great big bear! Grrrr!

Chorus: Oooh!

Mama: A middle-sized bowl for me, because I'm a middle-sized bear. And proud of it!

Chorus: Aaah!

Baby: And a tiny bowl for me because I'm a teeny tiny bear. Goo-goo!

Chorus: Awww!

If I base the script on a picture book, I don't use every word in the book, but try to choose the most important elements. I also use a mixture of my own words, and keywords from the story. If there is a special repeated phrase, like "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin", I make sure to include it. In the script above, I've used my imagination to begin to develop personalities for each of the bears.

Some writers include a part for speech tags in dialogue eg

Baby: And a tiny bowl for me because I'm a teeny tiny bear. Goo-goo!

Chorus: said Baby Bear.

However, I think it gets old quickly. Like everything I describe here, play with it, and see what works best for you and your children.

Here is the method I use when devising a script. First, read the work it's based on several times. Then close it, and try to set out the main ideas in script form. Once you have a rough draft, go back to the story and check whether you've included the most important elements of it.

Next, check you have as many parts as you want, and that the script is divided approximately evenly between parts. See whether you can relieve the narrator load by giving a small part to a character, or check if there's an opportunity for the chorus to introduce some sound effects to enhance the story.

Finally, read the script aloud. Make changes as needed. Does it work as a story? Does it work as a piece of theatre? Is it true to the original? If not, maybe the original served as inspiration for a totally new story you've created. I don't think that matters at all. The main idea is to encourage kids to interact with literature, and create something of their own, while developing literacy skills.

In Reader's Theatre (3), I'll describe how I introduce a script to a group of children who will perform it for an audience.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiaming/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Scrap Coloring

Terry Doherty from Scrub-a-Dub Tub is always on the lookout for sites that contribute in some way to children's literacy. (Terry and I are part of a committee working toward another Blog Literacy Tour, scheduled for March 2010, and Terry is building a huge database of literacy links which will be of great benefit to parents.)

At her blog today, Terry mentioned Scrap Coloring, and of course I had to take a look. I couldn't resist a little play, and coloured-in the chameleon template you see at left.

The site works well (best in Firefox). Basically, once you've found and clicked on an image, you chose from a palette of designs and colours, click on part of your template, and the site fills it in. I loved the variety, vivid colours and patterns, and ease of use. You can save your creation (make sure you have pop-ups enabled - I discovered that after about five minutes of hurling insults!) as a png file, or you can print out a blank template and colour with crayons.

The menu bar at the top guides you to themes like Fairy Tales and Vehicles, great to print out for one of those times when kids want to colour.

But what has all this fun and frivvle got to do with literacy? Personally, I think writing and images go together like Desi and Lucy, but if you want something less tenuous, try the First Name Coloring page. This enables you to input text on two lines, readily lending itself to use in greeting cards or posters. I think kids will enjoy choosing a template, colouring it, and then maybe writing a story or a description snippet to go with it. I know I did!

Other accessible visual editors and art creation sites I've posted about recently are Crayola's drawing tablet, Spell with Flickr, and Curious Corner, or you might like to go one step further and make a whole cartoon with Creaza's Cartoonist.

Book Review, outside IN

One of our strongest human needs is to fit in. This drives so much behaviour, particularly in our teenage years. Do you remember feeling that everyone else was cool, confident and charismatic, while you didn’t even fit inside your own skin? I don’t think things are any different for Generation X, Y or Z:

Feels like everyone else’s got the answers
You got shadows, they got light
You just got a heap of questions
While they got everything right

Written by Chrissie Keighery, and published by Hardie Grant Egmont (2009), outside IN is definitely a YA novella worth reading. I think girls will love this book, but don’t dismiss it as girly. It’s not gritty either. It’s a realistic novel about teens and the problems they deal with. Jordan, Jack, Meredith, Lee, Cecilia, Sam … and the watcher, Renee. Each one copes or doesn’t cope in their own way, concealing or sharing their secrets, and exploring the nature of growing up.

Friendship is an important theme in the book. These kids are real – we hear their thoughts and share their impatience, their loyalty and their drive to belong. Keighery has the knack of speaking in both an authentic boy voice and an authentic girl voice. I love the way she shows us the action, and commentary on the action, from each different character’s perspective. If this isn’t done well, it can result in a novel feeling fragmented or disjointed. Keighery weaves the different threads into a satisfying tapestry. She also tailors vocabulary and sentence structure to suit each character, strengthening their point of view, increasing our emotional involvement with them.

outside IN would make a great text for high school students to read. There are many discussion opportunities, and teens will relate to themes of body image, divorce, and friendship. Keighery’s writing expertise also makes it an excellent model for young writers. I am sure they will enjoy the fragments of poetry, the lyrical text and the three-dimensional, likable characters as much as I did.

Resource Roundup (November 09)

Here are some sites I've discovered recently that support parents and kids toward literacy, creativity and education generally.

Design Squad

PBS have done it again! There is a TV show called Design Squad, and this is the companion site. I love the great challenges for kids to solve , like "build a tower that can support a tennis ball at least 18 inches off the ground while withstanding the wind from a fan." The site provides a list of materials, as well as questions to help guide the process. There's lots for kids to read, as well as prompts to get them thinking creatively, or as the site says, "like engineers". This looks like a wonderful site for homeschooling parents looking for science projects that will enthuse kids. You can watch episodes of the show, access the projects, or find information about the activities for parents and educators. Read more about what PBS has to offer in my Plundering PBS post from September. (Thanks to Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teachers, for the Design Squad link.)

BBC Synonym Game

Need a child-friendly webspace where kids can practise finding synonyms? This game doesn't have many bells and whistles, but it might suit your purpose. Check out the BBC's other literacy resources for younger kids or older kids while you're there. (Thanks to Joy Simpson at Literacy Resources for the link.)

Learn Direct

At this site, there are two books to read, interact with and make changes to, The Journey to Darkest Somewhere, and The House of Scary Words. The site prompts kids to make changes to the text if they wish, and there are activities to complete inside the story such as matching homonyms, and finding small words inside larger ones. When you've read the book, you can elect to save it with your changes as a pdf, so you can read it later. There's also a pretty slick game, The Legula Adventure, which enables kids to read and listen, make choices and do word-related activities. If you want to save the progress of your game, you need to register.

Signed Stories

Here's a wonderful place to read stories online for those who are hearing-impaired, and those who are not. Kids can practise their reading by listening and following the subtitles, and there's sign language for kids who need it. Stories are themed, like Toddler, Funny, Adventure. Each one is a little video, some with the screen showing the illustration and text for the page, plus the person signing the text for that page, and the audio running concurrently. Here's one called Mr Majeika for you to try. Others, like Owl Babies, have the illustration animated. There's also some great advice on reading to kids.

More?

If you're looking for more collections of online resources that impressed the Book Chook, try September's Resource Roundup, Useful Sites for Parents and Teachers (1), Useful Sites for Parents and Teachers (2) or Useful Sites for Parents and Teachers (3). If you'd like more ideas about encouraging children's literacy, why not download the latest issue of Literacy Lava, or browse other posts via the blog archive at the right.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladouseur/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Reader's Theatre (1)

In July 2009, I discussed developing a child's imagination through play by spring-boarding from literature. Reader's Theatre is another wonderful medium for encouraging kids to use their imaginations. Basically, you develop a short script based on a book you've read together. Depending on your child's age, you could co-write a script with her, or she may have the confidence to try it alone. If your child has a group of friends over, they might want to perform the Reader's Theatre for you after a chance to practise (and giggle!).You can see a video of some children reading a Reader's Theatre about the Mayflower on YouTube.

Some stories lend themselves to Reader's Theatre. An easy start is a well-known fairy tale, a folk tale, or a fable. Many picture books are ideal, too. I have Owl Babies by Martin Waddell on the desk next to me - its combination of dialogue, drama, repetition, and simple but fairly static action would be perfect for developing a Reader's Theatre. Reader's Theatre is not the same as a play. In a play, actors have memorized their parts, and strive to move in a reasonable realistic way about the stage. Reader's Theatre participants read from their script, and movement is usually more limited. But there are no hard and fast rules that I am aware of. Remember the idea is to have children interacting with a story, and you are only limited by your imaginations.

A script for Reader's Theatre need not ever be performed for an audience, and in fact is often used solely as a reading activity in some classrooms. It makes a wonderful reading activity, because it gives kids a chance to repeat read, and to be part of a reading chorus. But my love of drama urges you to consider an audience for any group involved in Reader's Theatre. We lift our game when we know someone is watching and listening, and it is immensely satisfying to know you have really communicated with an audience. However, if you are going to base a script on an author's work, and perform your script for more than just a small group of friends in your home, or for another class at school, then I suggest you write to the author to ask permission first. Copyright Law protects the work of authors and illustrators, among others.

Reader's Theatre immerses kids in literature. I love this quote from Judy Freeman on Reading Rockets:

Reader's theater allows children the luxury of lingering over a story; acting it out many times so they come to understand all of its nuances. Too often, children read a story and only understand it at its most superficial literal level. With reader's theater, they're not just reading a story; they're living it.

In Reader's Theatre (2), I'll discuss how I adapt a story to make a Reader's Theatre script.

Picture from Morguefile.