Looking Back to August Past

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.

2009

Letter to the Book Chook - Getting Ready for School - Some ideas for helping your youngster begin school.

The Divine Ms Mem - If you're as big a MemFox fan as I am, be sure to check out these videos of Mem reading aloud - divine!

When Should We Start Reading to Kids? - One of the most engaging videos I've seen shows the value of reading to babies.

Literacy Lava 1 Recap - Have you downloaded your free pdf copies of Literacy Lava? They're still available on my website. This post gives a little blurb about each article in the first Literacy Lava we produced.

Literacy in the Playground - You can also download Literacy in the Playground from my website - find chants, games and playground rhymes that support kids' literacy and physical wellbeing.

2010

Use FlauntR to Play with Images and Text - A couple of Book Chook ideas for using a neat online photo editor with lots of effects including text.

Starting School - A letter from a mum whose son is soon to start school and my response

The Timer - A Parent and Teacher's Best Friend - Have you thought about using a stopwatch or egg timer when you're working with kids?

Fake Science - How using fake science can be a springboard to learning the real stuff. Plus I just love the idea of a tree octopus.

Nurturing Readers and Writers - Simple but powerful techniques for helping our kids become literate.

Playing with Art at CBeebies - So many charming activities for little kids - and chooks!

What Can We Do with a Newspaper? - Book Chook ideas for playing with and learning from the humble Daily Bugle.

Book Week Ideas - Guest Post and see my own recent suggestions for Children's Book Week too.

History Through One Painting - Check out this amazing painting and my ideas for using it to introduce kids to lots of learning.

Image credit: www.thebookchook.com

A Book That Impacted My Life - Vanessa Carnevale

Here is the fourth in this special series of Guest Posts by readers keen to share their book stories here at The Book Chook. Read the first at A Book That Impacted My Life - Kelly Burstow, the second at A Book That Impacted My Life - Virginia Lowe, the third in A Book That Impacted My Life - Hazel Edwards, and the fourth at A Book That Impacted My Life - Caz Makepeace. If you're interested in submitting an article about a children's book that has had an impact on your life, please use the Contact Me tab above. Today's article is from Vanessa Carnevale.

Vanessa Carnevale is a freelance writer, aspiring children’s author and mother of two. She is passionate about literacy and childhood education. Vanessa blogs at Sugar Pop Cafe.

One of our favourite stories is that of The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper.

The underlying message of optimism in this classic story of a brave and determined little engine that pulls a long train over a mountain, when all the other trains refuse, is one we can easily transfer into everyday life.

Those strong words of “I think I can... I think I can...” have become a motto in our household that we apply to many things such as learning to read new words, maths problems, or areas where we’re pushing new boundaries.

When my children are having trouble mastering a task, I often provide a gentle reminder to my children by reminding them about what the Little Engine said. It works wonderfully, because they often reply “I think I can... I think I can.” Once they’ve mastered the task come the proud words of “I thought I could...!”

As adults, we too can struggle with confidence and self-doubt. I’ve learnt that in order for me to be able to authentically teach my children optimism, self-belief and confidence then I need to practice these things myself. This is especially true as it relates to my own ambitions as an aspiring children’s author. As parents we need to give ourselves credit for the good we do and we need to remind ourselves that we can achieve wonderful things in life too. We just have to believe in ourselves.

Often my children ask me when are my stories going to become books. When I answer that I’m not quite sure, but I love writing, they reply “I think I can... I think I can...” It’s very sweet, but is also an important reminder to me of how important an optimistic mindset is.

Make Writing Fun - Guest Post

I welcome a guest to the blog today who has some exciting ideas to share about making writing fun for kids. Read a little about Jackie:

 I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, while my parents were going to university to become school teachers. I come from a long line of teachers that started with my grandmother, Josie. This is my 21st year of teaching. I graduated from the University of Alberta and have since taught all elementary grades except grade one. This year I'm teaching - you guessed it - grade one!!! It will be a learning experience. I love learning new things every year and I love to read fabulous stories that my students write! In my spare time, when I have any, I like to read, scrapbook, quilt, spend time with my family and sail the high seas on our sailboat - the SunHunter.


My blog is http://gypsyjacquelina.blogspot.com/ if you'd like to check it out. I add tips, tricks and  favorites to the site.


Make Writing Fun
by Jackie Wilkinson

Teaching writing is one of my favourite things to do. Over the years I’ve found a few interesting activities for children to have some fun with writing activities. Here are some of my favourites to use in a classroom or adapt for home:

• RAFTS - Rafts give the kids choices in what they will write about. You can have them choose the Role, Audience, Format of the writing and the Topic. To make a RAFT easier for younger children, you can have them choose what row they would like to write about. For older children, you can have them pick and choose from the various rows. Giving children choices helps them to feel like they had a decision in their writing and lets them take ownership for it - instead of just being given another boring assignment to write about.

Fairy Tale Raft

• Tic-Tac-Toes - this is another choice activity. The children choose what row they would like to work on, or if you choose, you can have them choose any 3, 4 or 5 activities depending on the age or skill level of the child.

Fairy and Folk Tale Tic-Tac-Toe Board

• Cube Its - yet another choice activity - here the kids roll a cube with the activities on it and they can choose their favorite activity out of as many rolls as you, the teacher, choose - give them a choice of 2 or 3 rolls. You can even have a huge class size poster made up with the activities and let them roll die instead - less work for you.

Fairy Tale Cube-It

More Ideas

• Online Writing - give these a try: www.storybird.com, www.kerpoof.com, http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/make-your-own/story-maker ... There are many great online writing activity sites for your kids to try out - you just have to check them out yourself!

• Story Writing Programs - one that I enjoy is called Books By You from Scholastic.

• CopyCat Books - have the kids read a book and write their own similar tale - great books to use are the Black Lagoon books by Mike Thaller, My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems, any of the books by Helen Lester or Keiko Kasza. There are so many quality picture books that you can use for this activity. Choose fun books that make the children laugh and have great story ideas they can springboard from.

• Use photos from their lives - do they have an interesting picture at home that they'd like to write a story or descriptive paragraph about? You can also use pictures from the internet that they would like to write about. www.bluebison.net has some interesting pictures that you can use as prompts for the children to choose from.

• Pick a Prompt - have 3 baskets, bags or whatever you choose to organize your prompts in the following categories: Setting, Characters and Problem. Write various, interesting settings, characters and story problems on cards that they can choose to create an interesting story.

• Role Play - have the children act out their story with puppets or role play it with partners and then write.

• Draw it - kids love to draw - have them draw their story ideas out first and then write.

• Publishing their own books - make mini books, flap books with their writing and illustrations. Here's a website that shows you how to make some of these fun books with kids: http://www.vickiblackwell.com/makingbooks.html

• Contest Writing - writing for a contest that could win a child a prize may be fun!

Book Chook Favourites - Reading

From CBeebies

There are many wonderful sites that support children's reading. I mentioned some of them in Online Resources for Reading and Writing. But in this series, where I focus on sites that are creative literacy platforms, I've chosen three favourite websites that not only support kids' reading, but provide some sort of creative interaction as well.

CBeebies

CBeebies has so much to offer young children. They can listen to stories, sing songs, play games, make and colour, watch and listen. You'll find lots of favourites here like Bob the Builder, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Charlie and Lola etc. Games offer all sorts of fun and interactivity. The most creative ones I've tried are the music and art ones, which you can reach through a label in the left sidebar. But all of the activities I looked at contribute to creative play - and for pre-schoolers, that's what creative literacy is all about. They are developing pre-reading skills by rhyming, matching, listening, following directions, building their attention spans, talking, singing and let's not forget - having fun!

I mentioned the website in Playing with Art at CBeebies, where I focused on the creative art activities I liked.

Scholastic

From Scholastic

The main US Scholastic site has loads of games, activities and articles aimed at younger kids in a section called Family Playground. You'll find features like make your own I Spy, where kids can add small items to an array of colourful objects and generate their own I Spy riddle in the process. There are games to do with Clifford, Maya and Miguel, The Magic School Bus and Word Girl, where kids can practise pre-reading skills like matching, word-building, rhyming and sound awareness. Kids can read stories too, and even interact by choosing words to finish sentences.

Scholastic's The Stacks for Kids is aimed more at primary readers and above. There's a whole section devoted to games and linked to Scholastic books like the Deltora series, Garth Nix books, Bone etc. Checking out these games could lead your child to the books they're based on, as might the videos and author interviews. Confirmed young book lovers will just enjoy exploring!

PBSKids

If you don't live in the USA, you don't get to see the videos at the PBS website, but there's so much else for emergent readers and pre-readers to try. The index page sets out the shows and you can click on each to be taken to the supporting activities.

Games like Word World help kids identify words and work out what sounds their letters make. In Teletubbyland, kids click on objects and interact with them, listening to nursery rhymes, counting, painting etc. My favourite is Between the Lions, which helps young readers practise pre-reading and writing skills. They use The Quiet Machine to discriminate between sounds at the start of words, Sky Riding introduces them to different formats for letters, and Word Play brings words to life by animating them. Other games focus on opposites, superlatives, synonyms, spelling out words to answer riddles, and so on.

Check out earlier posts in this series: Book Chook Favourites - Making Posters, Book Chook Favourites - Book Creation, Book Chook Favourites - Cartoon Creation, Book Chook Favourites - Word Play, Book Chook Favourites - Storytelling, and the letter that started it all.

What's So Good About Reading?

Children's Book Week has begun in Australia. I suggested some ways to celebrate this very important week in How to Celebrate Book Week and I've been following my own advice, reclining in my favourite chair with my head in a book!

Recently I asked some Facebook friends why they love to read and here's what they said:

Victoria Hennen - Reading makes your brain grow! (No matter how old it is).

Jackie Bradley Higgins - Reading helps me unwind and escape the worries of the day. It also helps my boys unwind as I sneak in some snuggle time with them at the end of the day.

Nadine Bates-Cusack - Reading allows that most precious of gifts...the capacity to see life from the perspective of others.

Tiffany Sweeney

- Reading provides built-in cuddle time with my kids!
- Reading allows me to escape from a hard day!
- Reading helps me to discover new people, new places, and fantasy lands that I cannot visit in real life!

Hazel Edwards - Reading provides vicarious experience from another's viewpoint.

Collett from The Family Factor - Reading is relaxing, transports me to another world, gets my mind off of day-to-day stresses.

Marita from Stuff With Thing - I like to escape through reading. My 8yo enjoys reading because it helps explain things that are sometimes confusing when they happen in life.

Victoria Jones from Missy Books Online - Reading helps me escape reality!

Jennifer Young - It’s an inexpensive escapism :0)

Jackie from My Little Bookcase

- I get to 'slow down' and take some time out with a book.
- When I'm reading, I get lost in someone else's world and forget about my own (problems/ duties etc. ) for a little while.
- Since having my daughter, reading has become even more important. At 2 she has an almighty love of books - so a love of reading is a connection I will forever share with my daughter.
- Books provoke me to think deeply about my own thoughts on issues, ideas, beliefs, values.
- Books have the ability to make me weep and laugh out loud.
- Books are best read with a hot chocolate and a sweet treat.
- Books give me something to admire.

Was your reason amongst those? One of the reasons I love to read is that it makes aeroplane flights shorter! I can wait patiently in queues when I have a book to help me. And I love to explore other worlds - whether they be factual or fantasy, a book is my key to travel through time and space.

Two of my favourite quotes about reading are:

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination. - Elizabeth Hardwick

The single most important condition for literacy learning is the presence of mentors who are joyfully literate people. - Shirley Brice Heath

Now over to you, dear readers. What's so great about reading, for you? And have you asked your kids? I'd love you to share what they have to say. Let's be sure to celebrate the gift of reading, not just this week, but every week!

Image credit: wikimedia commons

Children's Writing - Comix

Many thanks to @jdowlo1 of A Peek Inside blog who alerted me to this great website page where kids can create. It's called Comix, and is part of Aven's Corner which has lots of other flash games too.

What I like: the interface is simple and well set out and functions are (mostly) logical. Above your working canvas, you have tabs to choose from : Draw, Animals, People, Background, Objects, Shapes and Publish. Large green arrows help you scroll thorough choices once you pick a tab. There's lots of variety eg 33 pages of animals with around 7 to a page. At the left side of the canvas are three icons that help you move and resize etc, group, or choose colours. Kids could easily just use the tabs and get a satisfying result.

What I did: I chose a background, clicked on it to pick it up and clicked again to drop it on the canvas. Then I began choosing animals and people. This wasn't so simple. You need to click on the one you want, then go to your canvas and click and drag that item out to the size you want. It took me a moment or two to get it, but kids no doubt will intuitively manage. Give kids plenty of time to experiment and remind them that's how we learn. And if they work out what the group icon is all about, let me know!

The draw tab lets you add shapes and lines, draw freehand, add speech bubbles or an area of text, and upload pictures. Publish tab offers a print function, save to your computer as a jpg, or publish to AvensCorner.com. I tweaked my simple story in the text box, added speech bubbles and clicked inside them to add text, drew a fish with the pencil, and sat back to regard my masterpiece!

Comix is another interesting alternative for kids who want to create digital stories or just play with words and images. I found it took a little getting used to, but I really like the variety of features and the save options. When write o'clock comes around, why not visit Comix with your kids?

Book Chook Favourites - Storytelling

Telling stories is something humans have enjoyed since we first sat around cave fires. Nowadays, there are lots of creative digital ways to tell a story. I've chosen some of my favourites here to share with you.

PhotoPeach

Essentially, PhotoPeach is a slideshow, with captions and music added. You upload the photos you want to use by allowing PhotoPeach to collect them from where you've stored them on your computer, then choose from their music to accompany your pics, and write captions to help tell the story.

I told you about PhotoPeach in The Book Chook Makes a Slideshow and mentioned it in Add a Quiz to your Slideshow with PhotoPeach.

(I also told you about Flixtime in Create Video with Flixtime. It's an online platform where it's free to make 60 second videos. I liked it, but it does seem to have more buffering which slows the playback down, so I've chosen PhotoPeach over it. Best idea is to explore both and decide for yourself. )


Blabberize

Essentially, you're using your own voice to tell a story and Blabberize animates the mouth of a photo you upload. Once it's done, you can save and share it with others.

I introduced Blabberize in Blabberize, used it in Merry Christmas from The Book Chook's Kooky Uncle Fred, and again in Creative Prompt: Start a Story with a Wacky Online Tool. This last post has some platforms similar to Blabberize too.

DomoAnimate

Essentially, DomoAnimate is a website where you can tell a story in cartoon/slideshow form, and animate it slightly. Exploring here would make a great project to try with your kids. Although it seems child-friendly to me, as always, parental supervision is advised. Here's an example.

DomoNation.com: Ho Ho Ho by bookchook


Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It's free and fun!

Encouraging your kids to tell stories, taking them to storytelling sessions, and sharing your own fictional or true stories is one of the delights of being a parent. Using technology to present a story is not only fun, but gives a result that can be shared with a wider audience. Kids can develop their stories orally, and dictate them to you to make the captions, or write stories themselves. It's the best kind of learning, one wrapped in play! They're also making decisions during the creative process that have them thinking about communication - eg Which music would sound best with my story? How can I set up this photo to best show my character's feelings? What voice would a pirate use?

If you want to try low-tech ways of storytelling with kids, read my posts, Sixteen Sensational Storytelling Ideas and Create a Story Box.

Check out earlier posts in this series: Book Chook Favourites - Poster Creation, Book Chook Favourites - Book Creation, Book Chook Favourites - Cartoon Creation, Book Chook Favourites - Word Play and the letter that started it all.

Children's Book Review, Draw with Pablo Picasso

Here's an art book with a difference. Draw with Pablo Picasso by Ana Salvador, published by Frances Lincoln/Walker Books (2007) is motivating me to search within for my child artist, while contributing to my understanding of Picasso's art and philosophy. Can it do the same for you and your kids?

Picasso said, "In every child there is an artist. The difficulty is knowing how to hold on to this artist as the child grows up." I think I lost my artist around the time I began drawing a green line for grass and plonking a yellow spoke in the blue sky above it to represent the sun. Nobody taught me to look at the world in terms of line and form and colour. I didn't know that drawing was like telling stories, and that it was okay to create. I thought drawing meant the green line, the blue, the spoke and later, daringly, a box with a curly line ascending from its rectangular chimney.

"When I was young I could draw like Raphael, but it has taken me my whole life to learn to draw like a child." Now you can learn from the master himself. Step by step, line by line we show you how to recreate some of Picasso's most famous motifs. Through copying and then improvising for yourself, this book will help you to see and appreciate Picasso's drawings and inspire you to try out many more of your own.

There'a a lot to appreciate in Draw with Pablo Picasso. I like the way the activities are based on Picasso's actual works and how the instructions are visuals rather than text. I love that the 23 drawing projects are interspersed with Picasso's own wisdom in the form of quotes. There is an introduction, brief, to Picasso's life and work. But the rest of the time, young artists are free to copy, or improvise, as the mood takes them. Nothing explicit; just pondering, drawing and thinking about what Picasso said. The idea I believe is not to slavishly copy the master, but to learn from him, to look at the way he used colour, shape, line, space etc in order to interpret what he saw.

Did you know babies prefer Picasso to Monet? Apparently they go for Picasso's bold and simplistic lines. After trying some of the activities in Draw with Pablo Picasso, I think I can see why!

If you're interested in Picasso, you might like to read an earlier post, Picassopation.

Fictionalising History - Guest Post

I'm pleased to welcome Australian author, Goldie Alexander, to The Book Chook today, with insights into what writers must consider when they write historical novels for young people.

Goldie Alexander has written 65 fiction and non-fiction books published both here and overseas, plus many prizewinning short stories and articles. Her latest how-to-write’ text for adults is “Mentoring Your Memoir".  She fictionalizes history and writes crime, science fiction, and fantasy. Her best known historical fiction " My Australian Story: Surviving Sydney Cove", is now in its 10th edition. Her latest historical fiction for Young Adults is “The Youngest Cameleer”, her latest books for older children the children’s crime novel “Hedgeburners- An AZ PI Mystery” and a third collection of short stories: “Space Footy and Other Stories”. Her culinary mystery series for adults make up a trilogy of ebooks under the umbrella title of “The Grevillea Murder Mysteries”. Her website is www.goldiealexander.com

FICTIONALISING HISTORY

by Goldie Alexander

When I write historical fiction I try to portray significant events as well as keep you interested. I’m careful to only use research as background where people move about in an everyday way. Convincing characters, plots and structure keep us reading. Show, don’t tell is important. Characters must move about as if this is their ‘today’.

My latest historical novel The Youngest Cameleer is about one of the lesser known explorations into the Australian interior, led by William Gosse in 1873. The various members of this exploration (both European and Afghan) did exist and my story is based on Gosse’s own journal now kept in the State Library of South Australia. This expedition was the first non-indigenous group to come across the major icon of Uluru. Without the use of camels and Afghan cameleers they might not have survived those harsh desert conditions. Though it is the first time any cameleer was praised for helping open the interior, these facts are not well known. Nor that an Australian aboriginal boy was an invaluable member of this party. Some cameleers even lent their name to landmarks, such as Kamran’s Well and Alannah Hill. My intention was to bring this expedition to life by creating a fictional character that was part of it. Thus I came up with Ahmed Ackbar, a fourteen-year-old Afghan and my ‘youngest cameleer’.

Dialogue and first person narrative help create characters, so Ahmed tells his story in fluent Pashtu, but his English is limited. He is the only surviving male in his immediate family. In late 1872 he sails into the prosperous city of Adelaide to help look after four camels. Yet he has other things on his mind. What if his uncle Kamran isn’t as innocent of his brother’s death as he seems? As the expedition treks into the Australian interior, Ahmed must cope with Jemma Khan’s enmity, his own homesickness, and the difficulties of exploring unknown territory.

Readers might like to track Ahmed’s journey on a map of Australia. They can delve into how our first people behaved when they came across these explorers, suggest reasons, and their appearance was back then. They can research contemporary Uluru, both as an icon and tourist attraction. They can ask: what route does the Ghan railway take? What was there before the railway? What is the climate and terrain around Alice Springs like? What happens to that land when it rains.

If we don’t have Aboriginal ancestors, we are all migrants. My parents arrived in Australia in the first part of the twentieth Century and settled happily in Melbourne. Our great migrant waves have occurred at various times: during the gold-rush, straight after World War Two, and in the seventies when the ‘boat people’ arrived. It’s good to recall that Afghans have been responsible for opening up our vast continent and that without their camels the task would have been harder than it already was.

When I was young I always longed for a machine that would allow me to become part of a story. I always wanted to befriend some of the characters I read about. Then I could have had a fresh start with a whole new set of people. Back then as a somewhat solitary child who spent her life reading and imagining I was somewhere else with a ‘nicer and far more sympathetic’ family, I would have given anything to be assured that my loneliness would surely pass. I hope that maybe I can interest my readers into thinking the same way. I would like to help them look beyond the immediate present to see life as the continuum that it surely is.

Book Chook Favourites - Word Play

So far The Book Chook Favourites series has covered Book Creation, Making Posters, and Cartoon Creation. Today I bring you my favourite creative online platforms for playing with words. Of course, there are many, many word games online, but today I concentrate on those that are something more than just an electronic version of a pencil and paper game.

Word Clouds

Word Clouds are without doubt my favourite way to play with words. They combine one of my loves, words, into an image that helps me see words and concepts in a whole new way. I've written about them several times on the blog; in Word Clouds, What's the Use of Word Clouds, Dress Up Your Words with Tagxedo, and Book Chook Tutorial - Adding Pics to Wordle.

There are several online places we can generate a cloud of words where the most important words are bigger than the others. I like Wordle, Tagxedo, and ABCya Word Clouds. I haven't had time to properly explore Tagul, Word It Out or Wordlings yet.

Word Clouds can be used in lots of creative ways. Even generating a word cloud from pasting in a child's own story can be interesting, and I love the look of birthday and Christmas cards with wordles of family names on the front. I used Wordle Advanced to generate my image above, choosing font, colour and size of font as I described in What's the Use of Word Clouds. Googling "educational uses for Wordle" will bring you lots of literacy-related ideas.

Save the Words

I told you about this website in detail in Save the Words. It encourages kids to focus on uncommon words or words that are in danger of extinction. I love it because of the emphasis on increasing our vocabulary and enjoying the richness and variety of the English language. The interactivity comes in because you can zoom in on words (all clamouring "pick me! pick me!") and if you click on a word, you get to discover what part of speech it is, its definition and read a sentence demonstrating its usage. You can also adopt that word if you want, promising to use the word in conversation and in writing. What a great way to help kids build their vocabularies!

If your kids are keen word collectors, you could suggest they make a saveable image of their collection by writing each word in a different font, popping them onto different backgrounds, and dropping separate word images into a collage template. Or go for a pencil and paper option which would be much easier.

Free Rice

Free Rice offers more than word games. There are quiz type games in Maths, Geography, Languages, Chemistry, English, Humanities. The word game is under the category: English/Vocabulary. Basically, kids choose the meaning of a given word from four possible examples. Even if children are young, they can use a dictionary for help, and the game will present missed words again until players get them right.

So what makes it creative? It's a moot point, but I think the whole concept of Free Rice makes it creative. For each question a player gets right, the site donates 10 grains of rice through the World Food Program to help end hunger. Isn't that a great idea! Philanthropy in a game. Kids are not just playing, and testing their own vocabulary, but conscious of playing for the greater good of humanity. Successful players contribute their mite to cope with one of the biggest problems facing our planet. So Free Rice is interactive and creative in that special way. I also love how the game keeps score, recording the total rice grains you've donated.

Encouraging kids to play with words from when they're young is yet another tool in our literacy basket. Combining that word play with the magic of the internet helps them see words in new ways, develop a rich vocabulary, and immerse themselves even further in a love for literacy.

If you're interested in words, you might like to read Messing about with Words to Increase Literacy, Word Fun at Only Connect, Iconscrabble, Fun with Words - Spell with Flickr, and KeyMaba. If you have any favourite online platforms for playing with words, creative or not,  please let us know in comments.

Play with Fashion at Polyvore

It's a little known fact that the Book Chook is something of a fashionista. Correction: it's an unknown fact. That's because it's not true. But just because I take little notice of the clothes I wear, doesn't mean your kids and students feel that way. I know I tend to concentrate on primary aged kids with the resources I find, but sometimes teens can need a nudge in the direction of creativity too.

That's why I want to tell you about Polyvore. If you know someone who really has an eye for clothes and accessories, she or he'll love Polyvore. Kids can ask for and give style advice, shop, read articles and check out what other Polyvore people are creating, or create their own fashion displays.

Even if your kids aren't into fashion, I think they'll enjoy the creative aspect of this website. Polyvore has a create app where I played and produced the collages you see here. The website makes images and backgrounds available, and you can simply drag the ones you want to your canvas. Images are resizable, redraggable, can be flipped and cloned. There's a lot of variety, with music, colours, text, backgrounds and other items available. Most of it is aimed at teens but primary kids could play here with supervision. The fact kids can add text makes this a fun literacy activity.

If you register, you can publish what you make to the site. There's a newsletter too, where your kids can read about the look that celebrities like Emma Watson have, or how polka dots will add "caprice to your wardrobe" (Book Chook mental note - would dotty clothes turn me into a fashionista?)

How to Celebrate Book Week

One World, Many Stories

Do you love to read? I do! Each day I'm grateful for the gift of reading. I read to learn, to explore new worlds and to enjoy myself. When I imagine a life without reading, all the colour seems to drain out of my day.

Children's Book Week is a special time we Australians have when we celebrate books and the gift of reading with kids. It's later this month, August 20 - 26. The theme of Children's Book Week 2011 is One World, Many Stories. This is a great theme to introduce your children to literature from other cultures. I thought I'd help you get organized ahead this year, so you can plunder the library and plan your celebrations!

Ideas for celebrating Children's Book Week

We had some great ideas in a guest post from Nicole Avery from Planning with Kids for Book Week last year, and be sure to check out Nicole's 2011 post on ideas for using CBCA short-listed books. Here are some Book Chook ideas for ways to make Children's Book Week special, both with individual kids and with groups:

• Revisit a selection of books you and your kids/students have enjoyed. Sometimes kids just need to re-find old favourites to fall in love with a book all over again.
• Have a teddy bears picnic in the park and read some books to the bear friends. Honey sandwiches and fairy cakes might be a good start to the picnic!
• Write to your favourite authors and let them know how much you enjoy their books. Don't be disappointed if they don't have time to write back - it takes ages to write a really good book.
• Discuss: what makes us like a book? Ask everyone to write down their favourite book and why they like it. Do all the books have something in common?
• Choose a favourite book and act it out. Or choose just one scene and make a still picture of it with a group of classmates, using your bodies as the people and props from that scene.
• Pretend to be one a favourite character and make up some more stories for him/her to star in.
• Create a comic about a favourite book character or book world.
• Go through your books and see whether some books can go to younger kids. Recycling is good for the environment, it's a way of helping others, and it makes space for new books - win/win/win!
• Use YouTube to find some videos related to great children's books, then track down the ones kids enjoy at the library or book store. Here's a lovely video narrated by Alison Lester, author of Noni the Pony.  And here's another of my favourites, Owl Babies. 
• Listen to and learn this great song, One World Many Stories, on YouTube. How many stories from across the world do you/your kids know? Can you find some in books? 
• When you've found some books based on stories from other countries, read them, then discover more about that country. Can you learn some words from its language, find pictures of people who live there, learn a song or dance from that country? Throw a Book Week party where you match food to stories from other places.
• Record yourself explaining what reading means to you, or why you think Book Week is a good thing.
• Follow up a trip to the movies to see something like Fantastic Mr Fox with finding the book the movie was based on and reading it together. Discuss how the versions were different and which you liked best. How many book/movie combinations can you find?
• Make your own picture book for a younger child. Draw the pictures and write the story that is in your heart, and that you think someone younger might enjoy. Will you give it to them to keep, or read it to them?
• Dress up as a character from a story you've read. Get together with some friends and create a new story starring all of you! Or dress some of your toys as book characters. Can you make up a puppet play for them?
• Make a bookmark for a friend, or a poster with the theme, One World Many Stories. You could use an online collage template at Picnik the way I did for my collage above.
• Organize a book exchange with your friends or at your church/school.
• Write a 75 word review of your favourite book.
• Make a digital book (read my favourite ways to do this), or a digital poster (read my favourite ways to do this) advertising books. 

For some people, Children's Book Week means they take their children to one of the special events at their local library. For others, it might mean they take the time to thank someone who made reading special for them - a parent, a librarian or a teacher maybe. Other people throw a party, or have a read-a-thon, or give the kids some money to buy one special book they really, really want. I don't think it matters HOW you celebrate Children's Book Week, so long as you do.

Update: Looking for Children's Book Week costume ideas? Check out My Pigeon Pair's make-at-home tips.

Please share any more ideas, or what you will do to celebrate Children's Book Week 2011 with your kids. Sadly, my comment system is only working for some, but if you Contact Me (tab above), I'll add your comment that way. Include a link to your website if you'd like me to add that too. 

(Attribution for two book cover images from Wikimedia Commons, Roselle, and Milos.)

Book Chook Favourites - Cartoon Creation

Toon Doo

Today, I continue with my series on favourite Book Chook platforms for creative literacy, with three online places I love to create cartoons.

Toon Doo Maker

I was introduced to Toon Doo at What Ed Said where Edna often uses Toon Doo cartoons to illustrate her blog posts. I love the way she communicates succinctly with them, grabbing my attention to read on. It took me several visits to come to grips with the variety of features Toon Doo actually has. Even though I've been using it for more than a year, I often discover something new I can do there.

It's worth joining Toon Doo so you can save your work there. Once you do, head for Tools/Toon Doo Maker and select a layout - one, two or three panels. I have found this takes a while to load for me lately, despite our fast internet. Once the template is loaded, you'll see a screen that has your untitled, empty cartoon on the right.

On the left you will see:

1. a Toon Doo "start here" menu with important functions
2. a vertical row of icons that allow you to choose people, animals, props, backgrounds etc, and drag them to your template
3. a horizontal row of tools at the bottom that help you make elements you've dragged smaller, larger, flip or rotate them etc.

Truly, the best way to learn is to play around - you can't break anything. Once done, I suggest you save (under Toon Doo "start here" icon) by checking "keep it private" and think about the other things you check. With kids, it might be safest to keep what you make just for you rather than to share.

I love the versatility of Toon Doo. There is a ton of art work made available for users, and lots of ways to customise them. Toon Doo describe themselves as the "World's fastest way to create cartoons" - I think they also have the largest variety of cartoon elements. I've only touched on a few of the features here, and urge you to explore it with your kids when they're old enough.

I wrote previously in some detail about making books at Toon Doo, and using Toon Doo Spaces.

Kerpoof - Disney

Kerpoof's Storybook

Although it's not referred to as a cartoon editor, I think of the Storybook feature at Kerpoof as just that. Reason? Its characters are quite cartoonish, and it has editable speech bubbles as well as a small section under each created picture for text.

I wrote in detail previously about Kerpoof in Write Stories and More at Kerpoof.

Creaza's Cartoonist

Creaza's Cartoonist

Creaza has a great suite of tools - a comic editor, movie editor, mindmapper and audio editor. I discovered the comic editor, Cartoonist, back in 2009. I told you about it in detail, and have had a soft spot for it ever since. Cartoonist has are lots of thematic universes with their attendant backgrounds, characters and objects. I chose Three Billy Goats Gruff for my illustration today, but there are themes from history and politics too.

Creaza has a really helpful tutorial video on the home Cartoonist page to watch and listen to before you start creating your cartoon. There's quite a bit to learn, but it's worth learning to get the most from your experience.

Sometimes we can see screens and screen-based entertainment as the enemy of creating and learning. But creating cartoons at websites like ToonDoo, Creaza and Kerpoof involves children in all sorts of literacy-related thinking and problem-solving. You'll find more ideas for encouraging kids to write under Labels - "encouraging kids to write" in the blog's right sidebar. Catch earlier posts in this series with Book Chook Favourites - Book Creation, and Book Chook Favourites - Making Posters.

Children's Book Review, The Sorcerer's Apprentice

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

New Frontier Publishing (Australia) has a delightful series of books with accompanying CDs based on famous classical compositions. I've previously reviewed Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Flight of the Bumblebee. I very much like the idea of introducing children to classical music wrapped inside a story package.

Today I'd like to tell you about The Sorcerer's Apprentice, written by Tom Skinner, illustrated by Annie White and published by New Frontier (2010). This children's picture book is based on The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas, a much-loved piece of music. Children may recognise it from Walt Disney's film, Fantasia. I know I can't hear it without visualising Mickey Mouse prancing around with a magic wand! But Skinner brings us his own interpretation.

Rizwan is a fumbling apprentice determined to prove to his master that he is ready to become a fully fledged sorcerer. Things are not as easy as they seem. Rizwan gets himself into a bit of a sticky situation.

There is something for everyone in this story; mops, buckets, magic, a sorcerer, a beautiful girl and a slightly naive apprentice.

Kids will very much relate to Rizwan not wanting to tidy away his mess:

Cart this, cart that.
Egyptian cat, black hat.
I'm Rizwan the Great, Rizwan the Brave,
not some uppity sorcerer's slave.

And maybe parents and teachers will relate to the exasperated sorcerer!

I love how both author and illustrator have woven fantasy into this tale, but also added modern day elements like the Car and Camel Wash. There's humour too in plays on words and the colourful, detailed illustrations.

Antonia Kidman does a great job of narrating for the CD, where kids can also listen to excerpts from Dukas' music woven naturally into the narrative. I really like the way the CD is safely ensconced inside the book's cover - helpful for parents and kids who'd like more organisation in heir home than Rizwan! Kidman's voice brings the characters to life, and she also reads an end page that tells a little of the background of the original poem and piece of music.

Check out The Sorcerer's Apprentice trailer below or on Youtube.



Find more Children's Book Reviews on The Book Chook via the Reviews button in my right side bar.

***

Comment Alert: Two readers, Zoe and Penny, have tried to leave comments on this post but have been unable to. I tried myself and received an error message. When I went to Intense Debate to let Support know, they have a "Closed until August 12" sign up! I do value your feedback. If you want to contact me, go to the Contact Me tab above and use that email or send me a message via Twitter or Facebook.