Literacy Lava 3

Literacy Lava 3 is now available on my website. Clicking here will take you to the page, where you simply download the pdf by clicking on its cover.

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

Please help promote our love of reading, writing and communicating with creativity, by sharing this news with your networks on Twitter, Facebook etc.

Create with Fish - Poisson Rouge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So Creative, It's Spooky

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

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

First place in their contest went to Ghost Riders.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Soon, Literacy Lava 3

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

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

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

Online Story Maker - Photoshow

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

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

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