Children's Writing with Toon Books Comic Maker

Toon Books are easy to read comics that are an imprint of Candlewick Press. They have a cute comic maker where kids can create stories by using available art work.

First you choose one of nine different comics. I chose the one about Little Mouse. This took me to part of the Professor Garfield website which I told you about last week. It's also the same place where kids can read digital Toon Books, (mentioned in Online Resources for Reading and Writing.) There I opened my comic making screen.

The instructions are clear and the process is simple. You can select from four backgrounds, and some different poses of the characters, as well as props and speech bubbles. Text and other elements can be moved and the size changed, and objects flipped. The website lets you save your panel to your own computer as jpg or png file, or print it out. Some of the toons eg Benny and Penny have many more options for the character poses/emotions, allowing a greater range of story making.

Unfortunately, this comic maker doesn't encourage multiple panels. Kids must do each panel separately, then combine them some way. I popped mine, above,  into a two-panel template at Picnik. Obviously, the print option plus scissors and glue would work fine for a physical version. It might also be fun to print out some cartoons with blank speech bubbles for kids to fill in when you need a rainy day activity.

{However, the main Professor Garfield website does have a three panel strip, one linked to Toon Books. You need to log in, but there's no registering, a christian name will do, so you can save work. Once you've logged in, click on the first empty panel and options appear for adding to it. You can read more about it on the instruction page, and link from there. It has the same characters, but different backgrounds and options, and definitely three saveable panels- jpg or png, saved to your computer.}

All in all, The Toon Books Cartoon Maker is another great way to sneak a little learning into your kids' fun. It's screen time with a dash of literacy! I think making comics here will appeal to kids from 6-8 years. Check out the Benny and Penny blog while you're visiting. It hasn't seen activity for a while, but has some wonderful Benny and Penny stories for reading and inspiration.

Literacy Lava 9, Coming Soon

Here's some exciting literacy news! Literacy Lava 9 is due to be published on June 1. Earlier editions of this free ezine in pdf format - for parents, teachers and all who love children's literacy - are still available at my website.

Literacy Lava 9 will bring you articles by passionate literacy advocates Jen Robinson of Jen's Robinson's Book Page, Joyce Grant of Getting Kids Reading, Jeanne Grant-Webb of A Peaceful Day, Jackie Higgins of Ready.Set.Read, Dawn Morris of Moms Inspire Learning, Rebecca Newman - editor of Alphabet Soup, Stacey Loscalzo, Dee White, and ... The Book Chook!

Look for Literacy Lava 9 on June 1, and please help spread the word about this wonderful free literacy resource by sharing it with your friends.

Looking Back to May Past

Let's Eat Our Way to Literacy

Towards the end of each month, I like to revisit articles I've written in 2009 and 2010. Not only does this mean new readers of the blog may find something useful otherwise buried in the archives, but it also reminds me of content I can refer to when I write new articles.

May 2009

The Reader's Bill of Rights - and my response to it.

What's the Deal with Online Publishing? - wherein I explain my ongoing obsession with websites that encourage kids to read and write online.

Review, Myths and Legends Website - if you don't know this editor where kids can not only read but create myths and legends in words and images, I urge you to take a look.

The Ruthless Arts of Skimming and Scanning - helping our kids learn not to read word by word when they're doing research.

The Book Chook Plays with Publishing -a little like Glogster, Notaland is probably my favourite place for kids to create digital posters and multimedia presentations.

The Book Chook Makes a Slideshow -another favourite of mine, PhotoPeach lets us play with story by adding images, text and music to make a slideshow.

May 2010

Making a Book at ToonDoo - I just love ToonDoo, where it's free to create your own cartoons. This article is about using ToonDoo to create a whole digital book.

Let's Eat Our Way to Literacy 1 and Let's Eat Our Way to Literacy 2 - both have ideas for combining food and literacy.

Livebrush - downloadable drawing software.

Use Puppets to Encourage Children's Literacy - reading and writing opportunities centred around children's puppets.

Children's Creativity and Play - great video about creativity, and some websites where kids can create and play.

June 1 is just around the corner, and that means Literacy Lava 9 will be published! If you missed earlier issues of this free pdf for parents erupting with literacy tips, you can grab them at my website.

Playing with Images and Words at Fotoflexer

Words + Images = Creativity

I'm always looking for easy ways to generate words and images to express an idea. For a start, I like to create something simple of my own to illustrate a blog post as often as I can. If I can make someone laugh, that's a bonus. I do try to extend my creative skills whenever possible, and I'm usually crunched for time, so fast is good. But I also seek outlets for children's creativity too. I believe fooling around with words and images is a fun way to sneak a little literacy and learning into kids' lives. Fast is useful for short attention spans and "just five minutes more before bed."

Fotoflexer is similar to other online image editors in many ways. It lets you upload a photo from your computer or from a website. Uploading for me of the original public domain image above was quick. The editor has a nice big and clear interface, with several different tabs to choose from: basic, effects, decorate, animations. beautify, distort, layers and geek. There are lots of different effects but the tab I think kids will like is decorate. Here they can add stickers, text, glitter text, draw, erase etc. So here's the place for them to add text to an image. Inside stickers, they'll find a range of speech bubbles too, and then text can be positioned over the top of the speech bubble. Saving is a simple matter of clicking save (jpg or png), and storing the image in your computer.

I've only played for a short while at Fotoflexer, but long enough to discover it's quite a powerful online editor. The layers and geek tab offer some great features for adults too.

Children can learn lots about visual literacy while playing with images. Fotoflexer might be just the place for them to make a cartoon, annotate an image for an assignment, add a caption to a photo for Grandma or create some poetry. Best of all, it's a free online space for creating and having fun!

Creating Comics with Professor Garfield

If you're a regular reader of The Book Chook, you've probably noticed that I love to find ways to encourage kids to do some writing. I especially love free websites that allow us to use their editors to create comics and other stories. Websites like Professor Garfield are such fun to play with, yet I think they're much more educational than some of the screen time we're involved in. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Professor Garfield is a large and somewhat confusing website. It's taken me several visits to get to know the range of activities offered to kids here. I have another two articles about aspects of it coming next week, the Toon Books Comic Maker and the Professor Garfield Character Builder. But today I'll focus on the Comics Lab and Comics Lab Extreme, both places where kids can play with story.

Comics Lab wants you to log in so you can save your work, but any nickname will do, no need to register. It offers lessons and videos to support kids, and also the comic maker. The actual comic maker presents you with a simple three-panel comic. Clicking any panel allows you to edit that comic, by changing characters, backgrounds, props and speech balloons. This means it's great for younger kids, allowing them to make small changes and learn as they go.

Click done when one panel is finished and you're ready to try the next one, but you can come back and re-edit by clicking on any panel if you change your mind. Quite often kids won't develop a story in a linear way, so this is an excellent feature. The comic can be saved to your computer as a jpg or png file, or it can be printed out.

Comics Lab Extreme offers more. Kids can create their own comic books. There are detailed instructions in the Getting Started panel and a tutorial for support. They can choose from comic strips, manga, graphic novels, presentations and comic books.

I found the tutorial very slow to load, but totally worth reading. And Comics Lab Extreme itself took a while to work for me. Once it did, I could see the characters, props, scenery etc and choose from those options to drag and drop onto my template. If children start with Comics Lab, much of the process will be familiar. If you're registered with them, you can save your work, and export it as a pdf file to your own computer.

Kids will enjoy creating stories via Professor Garfield's two editors. The fact they can be printed out might lead your children to want to build up a collection. If they're interested in the comic format as a way of expressing themselves, they might also like some of the other comic creators I've mentioned:
Comic Master, Stripcreator, Beanotown, Creaza's Cartoonist, Story Maker, StoryJumper, Make Beliefs Comix, ToonDoo, DomoAnimate, Write Comics and Myths and Legends.

Children's Learning Activities, Feathers for Phoebe

Tomorrow is National Simultaneous Storytime in Australia. As part of Library and Information Week 2011, parents and kids and librarians and teachers get together all over Australia to share Feathers for Phoebe, by Rod Clement. (I wrote Children's Book Review, Feathers for Phoebe in March.)

If you're unable to make it to your local venue for National Simultaneous Storytime, why not grab a copy of Feathers for Phoebe to share with your child? Sharing a picture book with kids not only makes treasured memories for them, it puts their feet firmly on the road to reading - and what a wonderful road that is!

Here are some learning activities you might like to do with children after reading Feathers for Phoebe aloud:

• I suspect kids will be fascinated by the artwork in this beautiful picture book. Can they create their own bush scene featuring birds using some art techniques they know? Consider collecting feathers or leaves for a collage, using crayon rubbing over feathers to give texture to drawings, trying a combination of pencil, crayon and paint to produce vibrant colours. Clement has a strong eye for detail. Can kids use their observation skills to do a life-like detailed drawing of something they find outside? Can you use your own handprints or fingerprints or even footprints to make some birds?

• Make a model of a small grey bird. Consider a cardboard cut-out, a sock puppet or a sculpture built up from found objects and a glue gun. Invent some fantastic accessories for your bird - tails, crests etc. What can your kids suggest that will make accessories as bright and colourful as Phoebe's?

• Phoebe made some songs and moves to show herself off. Can you put some movements and nonsense words together to come up with your own moves and grooves? What sort of music would be a great accompaniment for it?

• Do you know any other nonsense words songs or poems? Play Gobbledygook - act out a scene talking only in nonsense words and see if you can make the other person understand what you're saying.

• Try writing your own story about an animal or human character. Give your character a name, then fill in the rest of the blanks to start your story off. "@@@ was _______ and _______ and he/she didn't like it. Not one little bit." Why not create a comic strip about your character, or making a poster about them. I've started one about Phobia, who's black and prickly, in the image above.

NB Harper Collins have some excellent teaching notes to support the book too. These are thorough, and provide all sorts of discussion questions and activities to use with kids. Go right to the end for a flip book template your kids will love.

Children's Book Review, Daisy plays Hide-and-Seek

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

I fell in love with Ellie Sandall's artwork when I read and reviewed Birdsong last year. So when I saw that this talented writer/illustrator had created Daisy plays Hide-and-Seek (Egmont 2011), I snapped it up with delight.

Daisy is a very special cow. Like a chameleon, she can take on the colours of the things around her, which makes her extremely good at playing hide and seek. Will her friend, Jake, be able to find her? Will you?

Like most boys his age, Jake is easily distracted. This combined with Daisy's special magical camouflage makes finding Daisy difficult. Kids will delight in pointing Daisy out to Jake - and to Mum, Dad, Grandpa and the lady next-door! This is a simple, gentle story, but one that will be read over and over again. There are also lots of opportunities for kids to learn new vocabulary, and relate textures and colours to their own lives and art.

I love the clever use of media in this book, with lots of fascinating elements to examine and analyse. Did Sandall use collage for this illustration? Did she add sponge? Is this water colour alone, or is that a crayon rubbing? Daisy gives youngsters pages of opportunities to look at different art and be inspired by it - young artists will enjoy finding Daisy camouflaged by so many different patterns and styles.

There are also lots of contextual clues and detailed illustrations to help children read the book independently. I love picture books that do double duty like this - perfect for reading aloud, but after lots of repetitions, they become almost memorised. This makes them ideal too for children ready to take that next vital step in learning to read.

I think you and your kids will enjoy Daisy plays Hide-and-Seek - I know I did! It's an excellent resource for teachers and parents who want to teach kids about camouflage, and about not giving up when you can't do something immediately. It would make an excellent prequel or sequel to your next game of hide-and-seek with your kids.

Here's a review of Daisy plays Hide-and-Seek from Zoe at Playing by the book with details of some wonderful hide-and-seek activities she did with her daughter.

Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Table of Contents.

Reluctant Readers Are Willing Players - Guest Post

Reluctant Readers Are Willing Players
by Dee White

In most cases, children are reluctant to read because they can’t. For some, there's a diagnosable cause. Others may not have been taught the tools they need to decipher the sounds and blends on the page. Remember, the child who doesn’t like to read, still likes to play.

Some children don’t absorb information by traditional methods so you’ll have to use your imagination to help them.  Not all children, especially boys, are happy to just sit and work their way through a book. Some have a more active way of learning and reading.

I've worked with children of all ages struggling to read and found that they're happy to read as long as they're made to feel it's a game not a chore, and you don’t expect them to do something that's going to be too hard and dint their confidence. No matter what their age, you have to work at the level they're at, and build from there.

Make reading fun!
From the earliest age, you can make games with words. Use sticky mailing labels to label things in their room or parts of a special toy like a truck.

Play games like ‘I spy’ to get them used to letter sounds. Encourage them to look at letters on car number plates and count how many start with ‘S’ for example. Junior Scrabble is another great game for kids because they can match the letters they pick up with the letters and pictures on the board. There are so many other ways to engage and interest children, yet still teach them literacy skills at the same time.

Pipe cleaners and plasticine
Some children have trouble reading words on a page, some find it just plain boring. You can spice up the experience by forming words with either plasticine or pipe cleaners. For the child who enjoys active pursuits this is more fun and can be more memorable. Some children will remember a word that they have made out of red plasticine, but not one they've seen printed on paper.

Hop to it!
Another activity for kids who would rather run around than read is hop words. Write each word on an individual card and turn it upside down. The child hops on a card, turns it over and reads the word. Reading this way is more a game than a chore.

Whiteboards work wonders
I discovered very early on with my children that they loved writing on the whiteboard. Consequently, I have found this is a great tool for encouraging literacy. Get them to write down their vowels. Encourage them to try and spell out words on the whiteboard.

Rewards for reading
Don’t try and force children to read words that are beyond them. Take out the hard words and do plasticine word making or use the whiteboard to help them sound it out. If a child is familiar with a difficult word, they'll be more willing to try and read it in a book. Reward effort with a sticker or some other simple token. Always be positive and don’t forget to tell them how well they're doing.

If  kids complain about  reading by themselves, keep reading to them. We're never too old or young to be read to. Maybe you can take turns with reading aloud. My upper primary school son, an avid reader, still likes cuddling up with Mum and Dad and sharing a good book. Why? Because from the time he was small, we have played word games and reading has always been fun!

Dee White wanted to be an author from the time she was seven-years-old. Her first book for young adults, Letters to Leonardo, took more than ten years to research and write. Dee’s other titles include Hope for Hanna, A Duel of Words and Harry’s Goldfield  Adventure.

Dee is passionate about encouraging young readers and writers and her blog is full of career and writing tips for students. She has run many writing workshops for primary and secondary students in various states of Australia with sessions focussing on story ideas, plotting and character development. She is in the process of opening a school for writers aged 8 to adult and more details will be available from her website shortly.

Review, Blog Boost

I don't have a burning ambition to make money from my blog. I do have a burning ambition to have a successful blog, one that finds people interested in children's literacy, literature and learning. I particularly want to reach out to parents, librarians and teachers who might find my articles useful. So, on odd occasions between researching and writing, I attempt some of the tasks recommended by blogging gurus to make my blog grow and be successful. But when I get to acronyms like SEO and SERP, when I come across terms like longtail keywords and meta tags, I find my eyes glaze over and I give up.

Luckily I discovered Nicole Avery and a tool she calls Blog Boost. It works in three steps. Here's how Nicole explains it:

1. You complete a questionnaire so I can assess your goals for your blog, your skill set and available blogging time.

2. I will analyse your blog, focusing on the key areas you have highlighted in the questionnaire and deliver a comprehensive report, including actions that need to be taken with instructions on how to go about making the changes.

3. Then there is two weeks of unlimited email contact to assist you in implementing the Blog Boost Report.

I filled in the questionnaire and emailed it to Nicole, excited about Blog Boost but nervous at the same time. What if the recommendations were beyond my limited technical ability? Worse still, what if I didn't understand what was recommended, had no idea how to begin implementing the suggestions? What if Nicole recommended something I did understand but totally did not want to do?

The first words in my report allayed my fears instantly. Nicole offered support, both moral and practical. I needed both!

Nicole pointed out some things I knew already slowed my blog loading time down, but did not want to relinquish. She presented the facts, made suggestions, the rest was up to me. Figuring it was past time, I bit the Blog Boost bullet, removed my beloved widgets and tweaked other things. Result: even I can see the blog loads faster.

She also explained how to make Google work in my favour. Like most bloggers, I know a little about search engine optimization, and how important it is. I'd run programs through my blog to assess its effectiveness and been told to increase SEO. But for the first time, with Blog Boost, I found out HOW to do this, in terms specifically related to my blog. For instance, I already knew I was supposed to add alt text to images, but Blog Boost told me precisely HOW to do this, and do it to advantage my blog.

Some of the things Nicole told me were not maximising my blog's potential, I already knew. So what made it different this time? I honestly think part of it was that Nicole inspired me to make changes because she told me HOW to make them. I knew she was only an email away if I struck trouble. Sadly, I am easily befuddled, but Nicole didn't hesitate to answer questions and provide help. It was like having my own blogging genie in a Blog Boost bottle!

Clear as crystal communication is important to me in my own writing, and I admire it in someone else's. Nicole set recommendations out clearly and concisely, then explained them step by step. In the past when people used acronyms, and terms like "long tail keywords", I had just given up. Nicole's explanations made sense, were short, then she moved quickly on to what I wanted to know: why it was important to me AND what I could do about it.

So is Blog Boost a magic bullet? I've been looking for magic bullets my whole life, yet somehow it seems the worthwhile things are those we must work for. Blog Boost needs you to be motivated and prepared to follow its suggestions with real work on your blog. After that, the magic starts. I've had a 26% increase in page views to The Book Chook over 3 months. And that's just the beginning.

I don't run my blog as a business. But I have a passion for children's literacy, literature and learning, and I want to share my passion with as wide an audience as possible. Because of Blog Boost, I now know how to take my blog to the next level. It's exciting!

SPECIAL OFFER 

In conjunction with today's review, Nicole Avery of Blog Boost is making a special offer to The Book Chook readers. If you enter the code "bookchook" when ordering, you'll get $50 off the normal price of Blog Boost. That offer lasts until the end of June.

Visual Literacy Activities with Online Resources

Visual Literacy is Everywhere!

Last week I talked about visual literacy in Visual Literacy Activities with Children's Picture Books.  I suggested children's picture books make a natural place to start teaching kids about visual literacy. Here are some online resources I've found that also support visual literacy.

Almost any website can be examined from the perspective of its visual communications. Encourage your kids to become aware of what's behind the type and placement of images, choice and size of font, subheadings, flow of one chunk of text to another, colours etc. This helps them not only to develop visual literacy skills they can use in their own projects, but also to become more media savvy as consumers.

Here are particular websites that I think are stand-outs in terms of visual literacy possibilities for kids:

At Howtoons, you'll find instructions on how to build all sorts of things. The instructions are in the form of a comic strip adventure and a downloadable pdf blueprint. Here's an example: The Infamous Marshmallow Shooter. There's also an excellent pdf booklet called Seeing the Future, A Guide to Visual Communication, that explains drawing plans to kids very well.

Your teens might be interested in Clean Up Your Mess which explains visual design beautifully.

Another great place to find diagrams I think your kids will like and appreciate is What I Made, where artist Scott Bedford shares wonderful creative projects via visually enticing diagrams. Example, instructions for a marble run.

Origami Kids is a great website for kids to develop visual literacy with text instruction, diagrams and stop-motion animations all available. For instance to make an origami box, you get to actually see the particular fold being made over and over in front of you before you look underneath and press the "next button" to see the next fold. Steps are slow and achievable for kids. And chooks.

If you're looking for a website where you and your children can actually create visualisations, try Many Eyes. Here you can choose to create word clouds, word trees, charts, graphs, diagrams and maps. Another website where you can create graphs is NCES Kid's Zone. At Icon Scrabble, children can type in a word and then generate it as symbols. See my example below.

When you're checking out these and other websites with your kids, it's a good idea to act like a detective, and try to work out what's going on. Discuss your overall impressions of a website, then try to drill down and discover how that impression was formed. Think about all the visual messages the site is sending, and how those messages were created. Look for graphic symbols that communicate instantly, and others that leave you puzzled as to their meaning. If a website or page is too "busy" with distracting elements, what implications does that have for our own presentations? If we like lots of pink sparkle, is that always appropriate for every communication?

{Image made by Book Chook with Skitch}

Children's Book Review, Dame Nellie Melba

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

I'm very much enjoying the New Frontier children's book series, Aussie Heroes. Like lots of us I guess, I know the names of many Australian heroes, but not too much about them. Recently I wrote a children's book review of Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop and today I'd like to give you a glimpse of Dame Nellie Melba. Dame Nellie Melba is actually the first published of the Aussie Heroes series. It was written by Gabiann Marin, illustrated by Rae Dale and published by New Frontier (2010).

I've seen Dame Nellie Melba on the Australian $100 note - although not so often as I would like! I knew she'd given her name to the dessert, Peach Melba, and to Melba toast, that she was a famous Australian singer and that was about all. So I enjoyed learning about this Aussie hero.

Marin chose highlights of Melba's life to depict for us, and put her exploits into the context of her time, 1861 - 1931. It wasn't common for Australia to produce world-renowned singers. In fact, when Melba went overseas, she was originally treated with disdain and contempt, and assumed to be rough and uneducated - a colonial. Marin unfolds all of Melba's story by choosing compelling scenes and letting the characters explain through dialogue and action, then weaving in narrative to lead us to the next scene. This is a boon for young readers. So often biographies of historical figures are lengthy narratives with lots of passive language, and kids lose interest.

The other feature I applaud in the Aussie Heroes series is the inclusion of colourful art work. Dale has created cartoon-style illustrations with a historical flavour and authentic detail. These serve to add interest to the story, while also breaking up the text and making it more "readable". The front cover above is a perfect example of Dale's illustrative style.

I believe it's important for children to read about people with perseverance, determination and a clear vision of what they want from life. Dame Nellie Melba knew from when she was a child that she wanted to be a great opera star, and she stayed true to her dream. The book also provides children with a fascinating glimpse into Australia's past. We see how powerless women were in many ways, even one as determined as Nellie.

New Frontier have notes to accompany the book, useful for teachers and parents who want to help their kids extend the literature experience. From those notes I found a Youtube link of Dame Nellie Melba singing "Ah, Fors E Lui" from Traviata. This whole series ties in very well to the states' Social Science curricula (HSIE, SOSE etc), and the Australian Curriculum's History. The sturdy paperbacks make an excellent choice for the non-fiction section of any library.


Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Table of Contents.

Add Captions to Images with Bubblesnaps

Bubblesnaps adds speech bubbles to images.

Two weeks ago I suggested some writing fun for kids: that they create captions for pictures and photographs as a fun children's literacy activity. Here's a web app I found that's a very simple way of adding speech or thought bubbles to pictures from your own computer or from your Flickr account.

At Bubblesnaps, the first step is to locate your chosen photo then click to upload it. After that you choose a speech bubble, add text to it and edit if you need to. Last step is to email it to yourself or some lucky recipient. The email provides a link where the image can be viewed, or printed, so if you want an actual digital copy you can save to your computer, you need to take a screen grab of it.

If your kids want to try adding captions to their own art work, you'll need to scan that in to make a digital copy first. This would look great on a class blog but perhaps is more steps than you have time for. For quickness, forget digital. You could make up a template of a speech bubble, cut one out from plain paper and let kids write on that. Or they can simply draw their own speech bubbles. The same template would work if you want to add captions to a photo and use magnets to put them on the fridge.

The main idea of this caption activity is to incorporate writing into children's everyday lives. When write o'clock comes around, if you're short on time, brainstorm some titles or dialogue with your kids and have fun adding them to family snaps.

Let's Celebrate Dance Like a Chicken Day!

How long is it since you and your kids did something kooky? Wore your undies on your head, or jumped in mud puddles or, well, danced like a chicken?

Tomorrow is Dance Like a Chicken Day. I can't resist special days that celebrate my feathered friends somehow, but also I'm using this day to remind me about something important. Something I tend to forget, and perhaps you do too? It's so easy to become absorbed in life's seriousness. We're surrounded by media that seem to delight in bringing us the bad news. We get to see and hear about natural disasters and environmental crises in minute detail. I'm not saying those things aren't important. What I'm saying is that I believe in making it a habit to incorporate fun activities into our lives too.

Isn't it possible to learn something and have fun too? I certainly hope so! But I also believe in doing some things for the sheer joy of being alive - things like making a fire outdoors and toasting marshmallows over it, sitting at the edge of the waves and building sloppy sand sculptures, sliding down a grassy slope on a flattened cardboard box, building a dam across a creek with rocks, making a cubby under the dining table and reading there. When your children are older, I'm tipping these activities will be ones that make great memories of their childhood.

My friend, Kelly, of BeAFunMum blog, often writes about ways she and her family have fun together. I asked Kelly to share some ideas with us for Dance Like a Chicken Day.

Fun: what is fun? Is it holding a hand full of balloons at a theme park, blowing out the candles on a cake, bounding on a jumping castle? Sure that’s fun. But you know what? Fun can be found everywhere, and you can see all the fun to be had, especially when you hang out with kids. Children find enjoyment from the little things. Fun can be smelling a flower, feeling the bark of a tree or even dancing like a chicken!


I think I may have myself a new motto: The family who does the chicken dance together, has fun together. Here are some ways our family has fun:


Fun with Food: Fruit Kebabs
Fun with Drawing: Drawing
Fun with flowers: Flowers
With sustainability: Recycle
Fun with nature: Nature

The chicken dance is a simple dance even five-year-olds can learn, so today would make a perfect time to practise it with your youngsters. You can see some enthusiastic dancers in this video. If chicken dancing doesn't grab you, (and it sure didn't grab the little one on the floor in that video!) I'm sure you'll find some other way to celebrate from all Kelly's great ideas. I'd love you to share: in what special or silly way does your family like to have fun?

Children's Book Review, The Bravest Ever Bear

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

Children's Book Review, The Bravest Ever Bear

Here's a most unusual children's picture book. The Bravest Ever Bear was written by Allan Ahlberg, illustrated by Paul Howard, and this re-issue was published by Walker Books (2010). The Walker Books website information recommends it for ages 1-5. I don't agree. I think The Bravest Ever Bear will appeal to 6-10 year-olds as a book to read, and 3-7 as a book to listen to in a read-aloud.

This is not a linear story. It's quirky, slightly silly and made me laugh. What's it about?

It's about a bear. The bravest ever bear. No, three bears. No, four and twenty black bears. Or maybe a penguin. No, no, it's about a sausage. A sausage? That can't be right. I'll start again. This book is about the perfectest ever princess, a wolf, a troll, a dragon and a sausage (again). Oh, I give up. The problem is everyone thinks this is a story about them and is determined to tell it their way. So, if you really want to know who there was and what they did, you'll just have to read these funny and ridiculous stories for yourself!

Clearer now are we? Basically, the Bear, who happens to have quite a good opinion of himself, takes over from the author and tells his story, then other characters muscle their way in too. Kids will really relate to the attitude and feistiness of the story's characters. "Anyway, I'm not marrying a bear." declares the princess and the top-hatted penguin hopefully asks "How about a penguin?" "Push off, Penguin!" she snorts.

Ahlberg is one of my very favourite authors from way back. Two books I love of his are Burglar Bill and The Jolly Postman. He also wrote wonderful poetry. Look out for Please Mrs Butler, a book of his verse centred around school. You can listen to Please Mrs Butler, the poem, at Poetry Archive. There is something so understated about Ahlberg's humour, but it keeps me in a constant ripple of laughter.

The pairing of illustrator Paul Howard with Ahlberg is an inspired choice. Howard has just the same sense of the ridiculous and adds delightful details - for example, when our hero, the Bear, is lifted by a front-end loader so that he can punch the troll on the nose. Illustrations are scattered over the pages, a banner here, some cameos there, a scene from the story interpreted Howard's way over yonder. Kids will love observing every tiny detail, giggling and sharing their finds with friends.

Something else I love about The Bravest Ever Bear is that it will appeal to kids who may think they're too grown up for picture books. It's the sort of book I can see Dads enjoying in a read-aloud, or Year Six boys sneaking peeks at because of the comic-style illustrations and humour. Teachers in early grades who treat Fairy Tales will value the book for its spin on classic tales. And anyone who values storytelling, will want to share it with their children. Libraries will need multiple copies - lots of borrowing ahead!

Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Table of Contents.

Visual Literacy Activities with Children's Picture Books

Visual literacy is something we need to make sure our kids have the skills for. The world is changing rapidly, but already we can see the need for children to know how to react to, and produce materials other than text. Images, audio, video and amalgamations thereof will become more and more common as ways for us to express ourselves. And for all those media, kids will still need their word-based literacy skills - reading, writing, listening and talking.

Sharing a children's picture book with our kids gives us a perfect opportunity to teach them about visual literacy. Visual literacy means reading and writing visual texts. Visual texts can actually include anything from diagrams to maps to movies, but visual literacy in fiction picture books will mostly be about the images that accompany the story text.

In children's fiction picture books, illustrations often tell another layer of the story, a sub-text if you like. Sometimes an illustrator will give pictorial clues, or partially hide elements, or repeat elements to make the book more interactive and fun for kids. In The Glasshouse by Paul Collins, illustrator Jo Thompson actually interpreted the ending of the story in her own very satisfying way. In Daisy plays Hide-and-Seek by Ellie Sandall, children need to find the slightly camouflaged Daisy within the book's pages.

Discussing aspects of what's happening visually within images helps children add to their own visual literacy skills. Encourage them to think about what they're looking at. When do you think this photograph was taken? What or whose perspective is this illustration from? Who might these people be? Why does the bear look so sad? Why did the artist choose all greys for this picture? How does this image make you feel? In the gorgeous vintage picture above, I'd discuss elements of the art work too, wonder about how the artist created shadows, ask what time of day it might be and why there is a moon.

When you're sharing books and magazines with your kids, watch for ways of presenting information visually. Pie charts, graphs, diagrams, cross-sections - all can be found in some of the wonderful non-fiction picture books your local or school library has. When you're reading a picture book together, make sure to point out and discuss not just images, but also the font, the endpapers, the cover, the title. Very often clever book creators have added to the book's appeal by interpreting the book's theme or subject matter within these elements.

Next week, I'll share some online resources that support teaching children about visual literacy.

Image credit: Graphics Fairy

Build a Face at FlashFace

FlashFace is an online editor for building… yes, you guessed it, faces! You don't need to subscribe, you can start building straight away. But if you want to save your created face to the site, you need to give name and email. It reminds me of the software I see witnesses using in crime shows on TV.

Your working screen is next to a menu of face elements and you simply click on facial shape, hair, eyes, eyebrows etc to make them appear on your screen. Once you assemble the elements you want, you can tweak them by dragging them into position, or using the item scaler. Scrolling through options by means of the arrows makes them appear on your "face" so you can decide if they seem right for you.

This is an interesting website to have children examine facial proportions and look at the range of features in human faces before an art lesson. I think young writers would benefit from creating faces for their story characters, or building a random face, then letting it determine the direction their story will take.

Boost Children's Literacy by Linking Reading and Writing

Link reading and writing to boost kids' literacy

If we can help our children make connections between what they read, and what we expect of them in writing, their writing will improve.

An excellent way to do this is to use picture books as models with primary school age kids. Good picture books have it all - a start that grabs our attention, active and interesting writing, rich language, a clear structure and a satisfying conclusion. Ask children to look for and comment on what makes a book successful, and encourage them to apply those same features to their own writing.

Kids in most western countries are tested in language arts (and maths). From my observation, these tests are looking for proof of advanced skills in writing. I figure a young writer who has reflected on reading and can demonstrate that in his own writing is more likely to score well in such tests. Hey, I don't much like our current obsession with testing, but it's a reality that kids must face. The fact that kids also are learning lots about being a real writer is the true benefit.

So how do we boost children's literacy by linking reading and writing?

• Ask questions that involve higher order thinking skills. Not literal comprehension questions like "How many bears lived in the cottage?" but questions that get kids to reflect on what you're/ they're reading. "Why do you think Goldilocks tasted the porridge?" "What would you do if you came home to find Goldilocks in your house?" "If you were Goldilocks, how would you apologise to the bears?"

• Model a writing activity as a follow-up to shared reading. No, I don't mean the dreaded book report. But be alert for natural and spontaneous activities. "I'm making a list of all the things the caterpillar ate. Can you help me?" "Bear wrote a letter to his grandma. Let's write one to our Granny." "I wonder if we could write a different ending for this story."

• Observe and discuss things that work well in a book. Ask your kids' opinions. Look for great starts in books and try to write some of your own. Comment on interesting words and uses of language. See if everyone can find the beginning, middle and end of a story. 

• Browse writers' sites. Many have useful information, generously given to young writers. It's good for kids to work things out for themselves, but if you have youngsters hungry for knowledge, or ready to take their writing to the next level, an adult writer makes a great mentor.

• Help your child make connections with other readers and writers. Check out writing courses, literature conferences and contests for young writers. Hanging out with other kid writers makes a real difference to kids who might be isolated through distance or feeling different because they're the only one in their class who loves to write.

• Make use of some of the great free websites like the BBC's Bitesize. For instance, if kids play Viral Vinnie - Gut Instinct at BBC Bitesize KS2, they'll participate in a quiz game with questions about word meanings and their contexts. A great follow up would be to have your kids write their own quiz questions based around literature you're currently reading.

If you're interested in helping children to read and write, you might like Help Kids Become Readers and Writers, or Nurturing Readers and Writers. Have you downloaded your copy of the free pdf ezine, Literacy Lava, from my website? No sign-up, no ads, just great articles on children's literacy!

Encourage Children's Imagination with Klowdz

Recently I discovered Klowdz via MakeUseOf.com, one of my go-to websites for all things techie. Klowdz is an online drawing editor, but one with a unique twist.

When you click on the 'get started' button, you're given a picture of some clouds. If that picture doesn't strike a chord for you, it's easy to press the cloud icon and choose another. Then you set to work and use some different drawing tools to add detail to what you "see" in your clouds. Tools like furry lines, curvy lines, simple lines and chrome can also be adjusted for size and colour. If you're not happy with your creation, you can clear and start again.

You can save to your computer as a jpg, or join the site and save to their online gallery, which gives you a url to share with your friends. No joining necessary if you just want to play, and save to your own computer. The gallery of drawings based on clouds will interest young artists and make not-so-young not-artists like me green with envy.

It's great fun to lie with your kids on the grass and watch clouds drift by. Challenging them to recognise or imagine shapes in the clouds encourages creative thinking and develops their imagination muscles. What to do if it's a clear blue sky, or pouring with rain outside? Try Klowdz with your kids and let them enhance their imaginary creatures with some interesting drawing tools.

If you're interested in ideas to spark creativity in kids, you might like to read  Develop Imagination Through Literature-based Play, Thinking Creatively or my Creative Prompt Series.

Children's Book Review, Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop

Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop

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

Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop was written by Hazel Edwards, illustrated by Pat Reynolds and published by Australian publisher, New Frontier (2011). This non fiction children's chapter book is the second book to be released in New Frontier Publishing's Aussie Hero series, with Dame Nellie Melba the first and Fred Hollows being released later this year.

Hazel Edwards has chosen a man to admire in Edward Dunlop, nicknamed Weary by his University mates in typical convoluted Aussie fashion: Dunlop Tyres = tires = weary. Edwards is a talented Australian author who brings Dunlop to life for us in the book. She carefully chooses the highlights of his life, explaining them in language simple enough for children to understand, but with vivid and interesting words that make an impression.

This is a children's chapter book, not a picture book, but Pat Reynolds' colourful illustrations not only enhance the story, they break up the text, making it easier for youngsters to read. The book targets children 9+, and I think it will make an excellent addition to school and local libraries looking to flesh out their Australian history collection. This Aussie Heroes series makes an excellent prompt for having children think about and write about people they admire and respect.

It's important for children to read about people designated as heroes. The media makes much of celebrities who do outlandish things to gain attention, but people like Dunlop inspire and show us the rewards of dedication and hard work. Boys in particular will enjoy reading about Dunlop's sporting prowess. I hope everyone who reads the book will be as moved as I was to read about Dunlop's compassion, courage and tremendous determination during the Second World War.

You can find resource material to support Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop at Hazel Edwards' own website.

Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Table of Contents.

Writing Fun for Kids - Create a Caption

Toothache at the Museum

Are you looking for a writing activity for your kids or group that's creative, fun and fast? Caption writing could be just the thing!

Captions in this context are usually a sentence or snippet of dialogue children match up with a picture. They can leaf through old magazines to find an image that sparks an idea, draw or paint one of their own, or use a digital image. That image could come from Flickr (make sure it's licensed for re-use) or Google images, or perhaps it's a holiday snap you like. Add more creativity by suggesting kids set up their own photo shoots and take a snap that matches a great caption they've invented. This might involve dressing teddy as a superhero and suspending him with fishing line from the ceiling - just think of all the organisational and thinking skills involved!

Once they have a picture or two, help them brainstorm opportunities for humour. Helpful questions could be "What is this person thinking?" "What might just have happened?" "Is this person saying something but thinking something different?" A caption might be like a title for the picture - "Super Ted Saves the Day!" or some dialogue - "Take that, Battle Barbie 2!" or just a sentence or question - "Will Grandma decide to bring her umbrella next time?"

In a classroom situation, kids can devise a picture so their partner can write a caption, and vice versa. Caption writing really lends itself to being a classroom or school contest too - have a prize for the best caption as chosen by judges, and print out the entries for a great classroom display.

There are some excellent online image editors that encourage you to add captions. I described some in Quick Writing Online, and another in Play with Words and Images at Pizap. Kids can also use a comic builder like Make Beliefs Comix to set up a three panel story for a friend. Make sure they leave the balloons blank, and then the friend must write appropriate dialogue or thought inside the printed out comic. Google Docs will enable a user to add text to images or drawings. Software like Comic Life Maqiq is wonderful for adding text to images, too.

Writing captions is great practice for doing what journalists call "writing tight". The idea is to cut to the chase, remove unnecessary words and tell a story in as few words as possible. Kids need to imagine the story behind the picture and share that vision via the caption they choose. Caption writing doesn't take long, but it helps kids add useful skills to their own writer's toolbox. If you're looking for something different for a birthday card, something creative yet fun, why not encourage your kids to add captions to images?

And if you're looking for a photo to challenge your kids with, consider this one of a horse I found at Morguefile. I've added a speech bubble. If this horse could speak, what might he be saying? If you'd like to email me your kids' ideas, I'll choose one, and add it to the speech bubble.

{Dinosaur image originally from Morguefile - caption and stamps added at Pizap.com. Three panel comic from MakeBeliefsComix. Horse image from Morguefile, speech bubble added at Picnik.}

Children's Learning at ExplOratorium

BOOK CHOOK WARNING: do not visit the ExplOratorium website unless you have hours to spare! There is so much to investigate, so many interesting and quirky pathways to take, so much useful information and media to aid children's learning.

The real life ExplOratorium is based in San Francisco. (Note to self: must visit San Francisco!) It has travelling exhibitions like the Geometry Playground. Luckily for those of us who don't live in the US, it also has a great website with lots to offer parents, teachers and kids.

The Exploratorium isn’t just a museum, it’s an ongoing exploration of science, art, and human perception—a vast collection of online interactives, web features, activities, programs and events that feed your curiosity.

Choose an activity from the home page, or the interactive page. Let's choose Geometry Playground as an example. That brings up an index page for Geometry Playground where further choices include Geometry Garden, Artists in Residence, Activities and Links etc. You can also explore the Geometry Playground exhibition via the themes of seeing, moving and fitting things together (- a photo essay.)

Each time you visit a page, more activities are offered, many of them short videos of shape- related activities in the real world, others text pages with mathematical activities and explanations kids can try. The Activities and Links page for Geometry Playground is HUGE - there are hands-on activities/lessons on tessellations, symmetry, patterns, shapes etc, all divided into Grade Level (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) and with a short description. By the way, if you're interested in Geometry, make sure you also check out @cybraryman's links page.

Geometry Playground is just one section! There are so many more: Science of Gardening (are your kids fascinated by carnivorous plants? Must see video!), Science at Burning Man, The Tinkering Studio - I love their excellent information on marble machines. And there are hundreds of activities, many interactive. Cuteify, for instance, helped me to investigate the factors that make animals, faces, and even objects cute - or not. I could adjust the size of various elements and work out what the cute factor was. And The Crying Game had me rate a video of a baby according to various criteria, then discussed my responses and compared them with others. Kids will also enjoy learning about Optical Illusions.

You can see all 148 websites and 528 activities via the topics page. I think you'll now agree with my warning at the start of this article. Exploratorium is a comprehensive and fascinating site, a real boon to parents (especially home schoolers) and teachers everywhere.

Children's Book Review, The Sky Dreamer

Children's Book Review by Renee Taprell

The Sky Dreamer is a touching children’s picture book written by Anne Morgan and illustrated by Celine Eimann. It was published by IP Kidz in 2011.

When Liam’s sister dies, his world turns grey. He spends hours watching clouds crossing the wintry skies, hoping that Cassie is out there somewhere. The night before Liam’s birthday, Cassie sails the Sky Dreamer to their home and invites Liam to climb aboard. Together they sail through the sky while Cassie sews Liam’s birthday present.

But just like in real life - it’s not always smooth sailing.

Along the way there are thunderclouds, lightning, and a storm of meteorites. "Help me, please!" Liam begs. But Cassie keeps sewing. Cassie is only there to guide him, it’s up to Liam to steer himself out of the grim, grey fog and take control of his life.

The Sky Dreamer is one those books where the author and illustrator have done an extraordinary job approaching a difficult subject like death. Even though it is ultimately about the death, I believe it encourages children to explore their emotions in many situations where they may be grieving or need to be strong and independent when they’d rather run and hide.

Eimann’s whimsical illustrations are a mixture of soft pencil and swirls of pastel paint. The pages start completely grey and grow to splashes of dreamy colour.

At the end, Cassie leaves Liam with a precious rainbow cloak that she has sewn to keep him warm, safe, and to brighten his life. The Sky Dreamer is a comforting children’s picture book that allows children to recognise their emotions and take control of their life after the death of a loved one, just as Liam has done.




Renee Taprell is an Early Childhood Teacher and aspiring children's author. Her blog, Books for Little Hands, focuses on picture books and writing for young children.


Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Table of Contents.