A Review of the Brilliant Work of Two New Writers

I have reviewed Nigel Osgood's work previously on my blog (See HERE). Last time I reviewed his wonderful book ''Bedtime for Ella: A Giggly Furbottom Adventure'. 

He has a number of books in the pipeline that will be published this year. In this post, I want to focus on two released recently. Nigel is not only a writer, he is also a very talented creator of videos that parallel his stories. You can view this wonderful video he produced for 'Bedtime for Ella' HERE. In this issue, I will review his recent books in the 'Giggly Furbottom' adventures, as well as books from another 'new' author.

1. 'Ella and the Magic of Seven' A Giggly Furbottom Adventure

In this second book of 'Giggly Furbottom' adventures, Ella is about to turn 7, and hasn't seen her very special friend Giggly Furbottom recently. She has been missing her friend and hopes he might just remember her on her 7th birthday. One night after she has gone to bed, she whispers and bids him to appear. Suddenly there is a noise in her wardrobe and... you guessed it, Giggly has come!

Now this will be no ordinary birthday, for they are about to "Soar through the sky, and explore enchanted gardens and underwater palaces". These adventures open up many fantastic creatures to meet. 

Children rich in imagination love to explore and create unknown worlds, where one might just find "fairies, pixies, and even a talking fox!" The book celebrates the power of friendship, kindness and the extraordinary.

This special story will take readers and listeners on amazing adventures that will stimulate their imaginations, lead them to question the unknown, and consider the perennial question 'what if...'? 

Giggly and Ella soar off through the sky on a very special adventure. Underlying the story is a celebration of the power of friendship, kindness, and believing in the extraordinary.

2. 'Ella's Forest of Letters: A Giggly Furbottom Adventure'

Ella has some school work to complete, but she is distracted and wished her lovable monster friend Giggly Furbottom was there to help her learn the pesky alphabet. So, get ready for a magical journey through the alphabet! Our adventurous pair explore a whimsical forest filled with fascinating creatures like butterflies, eagles, and hedgehogs. 

And of course yummy Apples are the first surprise (get away worm), a beautiful Butterfly, fluffy Clouds, Dragonflys and much more, until it all ends with a lot of Zzzzzs.

The book includes engaging rhymes and vivid imagery, that will capture the imagination of children aged 4 to 7 years. "Ella's Forest of Letters" is the perfect bedtime story to help young children learn their ABCs, and at the same time, embark on a magical learning adventure! 

Why share this book with children? The author suggests that as well as being an engaging story, it will offer tangible benefits as we develop our young children as readers. Here are his seven benefits:

a) It will help to teach the alphabet. It does this by introducing every letter of the alphabet in a fun and engaging way, connecting them to animals and concepts that will help to improve reading skills.

b) Inspiring creativity and imagination. The forest backdrop and the endearing monster character, encourage children to unleash their creativity and imagination.

c) Fostering friendships and companionship. The bond between Ella and Giggly Furbottom highlights the importance of friendship, and teaching children lessons through acts of kindness.

d) Providing comfort and security. The narrative sets a tone ideal for bedtime, helping children feel secure and at ease, as they prepare to rest for the night.

e) Cultivating an attitude towards learning. By turning alphabet-learning into an adventure, the story instills a positive outlook on education.

f) Improving language skills. Through rhymes and captivating storytelling, children are exposed to vocabulary and language structures that support their language development.

g) Enriching cultural awareness. By incorporating animals and concepts tied to each alphabet letter, children are introduced to references that expand their knowledge of the world, around them.

3. 'The Mumbai Street Siblings: Amit's Sweet Surprise' by Karina Vunnam

This is book one of a series of books about 'The Mumbai Street Siblings'. I wasn't aware of Karina's work until recently. I love to review new writers and so am grateful that Karina reached out to me.

Anyone who has been to Mumbai, or perhaps has simply visited Indian markets in other countries where Indian immigrants have settled, will know how wonderful Indian street food events are. As Karina suggests, you can simply "follow your nose" as you walk through such exciting markets. 

This is the story of three siblings who have made their home among the bustling markets of Mumbai, India's largest city. The curiosity of the children leads to a series of events. It begins when four year old Amit catches the sweet aroma of Jalebi for the first time. His curiosity leads to a chain of events.                                                                          

With twelve-year-old Anita's wisdom and six-year-old Sunita's enthusiasm, the siblings discover that determination, creativity, and teamwork can turn even the simplest dreams into reality.'

Children will have an introduction to life in Mumbai, including it's food, culture, the richness of family, human resilience and also the art, customs and life in India. The book offers:

• An authentic insight into daily life in Mumbai
• Rich descriptions of Indian culture and street food
• Positive messages about family bonds and resilience
• An introduction to Hindi words and Indian customs
• Engaging artwork that brings Mumbai's vibrant atmosphere to life

The book is suitable for readers aged 4-8 years.

 

 

 

Holiday Ideas to Stimulate Thinking, Creativity and Language

In Australia we're in the middle of the Easter/Autumn break for all school children and with COVID-19 still active across the world ideas to engage our children in some stimulating (& fun) creative and intellectually challenging activities is from and centre.

Many of these well known activities can also reduce screen time and boredom. All are fun, simple and can be done at home. Of course, while it's a post about holiday activities any of the ideas can also be used at other times. 

I've also written a number of posts in the past about things to do in the holidays with kids (here) and simple travel games to fill the time on trips with your children (here). There is also a post on Planning With Kids that offers '20 Great Holiday or Travel Activities for Kids (5-15)'. To maintain some balance you might also find my post on 'Boredom is still good for children!'

In this post I thought I'd offer my top 16 activities that can work inside and outside, in any type of weather. My criteria for choosing them are that the activities should:

• Stimulate creativity
• Encourage exploration and discovery
• Involve using their hands as well as their minds
• Encourage interaction between you and your children
• Foster literacy development 
• Increase their knowledge
• Keep them interested

Encourage your children to make a film 

1. Use a simple animation app to get them started - This sounds a big deal but its not with the write app. I wrote a post about some wonderful apps for digital story telling a year or so ago (HERE). One of my favourites is 'Puppet Pals, for one thing, it's VERY easy to use. Your children will work it out in minutes. Puppet Pals is available as a free app for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. It is essentially a simple way to create an animated movie using 'cut-out' themed characters and a variety of backdrops and scenes to create an animated 'puppet' play.

There is a free version that comes with Wild West backgrounds and actors.  However, you can also purchase different themes for $US0.99 or the 'Director's Cut' in which you can access all the themes for $US2.99. These allow you to obtain a range of additional scenarios and characters based on themes such as monsters, space, pirates, arthropod armada, Christmas and so on. You can even make your backdrops and characters.

This is a very simple to use app that provides very easy storyboarding. You can record dialogue, move characters around, create some simple effects, change backdrops and settings and characters. Below is an example that my eight year old grandson produced with little instruction and next to no preparation at his second attempt using the app. While ideally, before creating the animation, the writer/producer prepares plot summaries and story ideas, Jacob made this excellent animation as a first take. He used the 'Arthropod Armada' theme from 'Director's Cut'. 

Puppet Pals is a wonderful resource for supporting story telling, writing, language development, creativity, and problem solving, while at the same time introducing them to film making and animation. I could see myself using a smartboard to collaboratively develop a story with my class before introducing individuals and groups to this smart little app.

Books with a difference

2. Pick some special books they haven't seen - try to borrow or buy at least 2 books for each child that you think they'll enjoy. Opportunity shops, book exchanges and libraries are the place to start. I have another post on book exchanges, op shops and web exchange sites here. Take your children with you to the op shop or library to choose them.

3. Books as a creative stimulus - While the shear joy of the book is usually enough, sometimes books can stimulate many wonderful creative activities. For example:

After reading Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things are" go outside and dramatise it. Let one child be Max and let others take turns at being the wild things. Make a boat out of bits of wood, or even have a go at making one out of a large cardboard box (or several).

After reading Jeannie Baker's book "Where the Forest Meets the Sea" (a book about the Daintree Rainforest in which all the pictures are collage) encourage them to make a collage out of natural materials (and maybe some wool, straws etc to supplement) in response to Baker's pictures. Or read a second book and have them use collage in response.

After reading Graeme Base's "The Waterhole" get them to paint the waterhole (they can draw the animals, cut them out and paste them around the waterhole).

4. Dramatisation - Dramatisation is an excellent way to respond to a book. If you have a dress-up box all the better. Let your children either re-tell the story through dramatisation or improvise. Get involved to help set the pattern for turn taking etc. I play a mean wolf, and an even better Grandma!

Writing

5. Diaries and journals - Introduce older children to diaries or holiday journals. Make this fun, not a school activity. If they just want to make it a scrapbook by pasting in tickets, leaves they collect, food wrappers etc, then let them. But you can also show them how to create a travel diary.

6. A holiday blog - Tech savvy mums and dads might encourage their children to write online. Why not set up a family blog that can be read by friends and relatives (even if only for two weeks). You could use this as part of a trip away, or just use it at home. Older children could set up the blog themselves and all family members could contribute. Let them have access to a digital camera and a scanner and the sky is the limit. See my post on 'Children as bloggers' (here).

7. Start a family joke or riddle book - give them some jokes as models ("Knock, knock", "Why did the centipede cross the road"....)

Craft

8. Structured Craft ideas - simple beadwork, noodle craft, mask making, making plaster moulds (and painting them), anything for young children that requires paper tearing, gluing, glitter, stickers.

9. Unstructured creative craft - Stock up when you go to the supermarket with simple materials like paper plates (good for masks), brown paper bags, sticky tape, glue, cotton balls, tooth picks, paper cupcake holders, straws (cutting up and threading), noodles (for threading).

Creative Play

I've written a number of previous posts on play (here) but planning for play is important. While you can say to your children go outside and 'play', doing some simple planning at times will lead to more stimulating play times.

10. Dress-up box - If you don't have one take the kids to an Op shop to start one. You might even pick up some gems like old helmets, hats, belts (you can cut them down), handbags etc.

11. Water play - This is hard in cold weather, but maybe you could make bath-time special for littlies with extra bubbles, different stuff to take into it . In warmer weather give them a bucket of water and some things to scoop, sieve etc - obviously only UNDER SUPERVISION.

12. Play dough - You can buy cheap coloured modelling clay but home-made playdough works well. My wife 'Carmen's can't fail' recipe is 1 tablespoon of oil, 1 cup of plain flour, 0.5 cup of cooking salt, 2 tablespoons Cream of Tartar, 1 cup of water, colouring. Mix together and put in a saucepan on medium heat until it binds together, stirring all the time. Fold together by hand. If you keep it in a sealed plastic bag it will last for ages in or  outside the fridge.

There are endless things to do with play dough. Try to move beyond just cutting out shapes (which kids still love). Encourage them to make a house, a farmyard, a bed, and an aquarium. Use some plastic animals with the play dough or small plastic people. If you don't mind tossing the play dough out you can let them use sticks, plants etc to make simple dioramas. Kids will create complex stories as they manipulate the play dough.

The blanket cubby!

13. Build a cubby house - No not with wood, just use a table, some chairs, wardrobes (hitch the blankets into the top of the doors, some pegs and sheets and blankets. By draping them over other objects you should be able to create a special space (about 2x2 metres is enough for three small kids). Try to get at least 1.5 metres of height. Have the kids 'help' and then get them to collect some special things to have in the cubby. Use a toy box for a table, some cushions to sit on. I always let my grandchildren have my cheap transistor radio from my shed (lots of fun). Girls might like a tea set; boys will collect animals and toys, both will like books. If you're up to it, climb in as well and read some stories. They'll like the edges tucked in to cut out light so you might need a torch. I've seen a cubby of this kind amuse kids for half a day. Then of course for the adventurous you can share some snack food as well. You can even build a cubby inside! See my post on cubbies (here).

Above: A 'house' one of my grandchildren made (with help) from a box we saved

Indoor and back yard fun

14. Treasure hunts - Write the clues on paper using words and pictures depending on ages and make the treasure worthwhile (chocolate, a coupon for an ice cream in the kitchen etc). For something a little more challenging why not try a map with grid references (see picture opposite).

15. Cooking - Kids love cooking with their mothers or fathers. Do simple stuff. Nicole (Planning With Kids) has lots of great ideas for cooking with kids on her site. Don't forget to make it a language activity as well by getting them to follow the recipes.

16. Insect scavenger hunt - Try an insect scavenger hunt (one of my grandchildren's favourite activities). You'll be surprised just how many you can find. You'll to be careful turning rocks over and digging around, but even in Australia it's low risk if you supervise. Place a pile of bricks in a damp place and then let the kids help you to uncover them a few days later - watch the critters scurry. We always enjoy a good snail race afterwards!

A few basics hints

• Have a strategy for the holidays - map out a timetable (post it on the wall) and try to plan a few significant events and think through the general structure of each day.
• If you have younger children still at home, being joined by school kids on holidays, try to think about how you will cope with all their interests and think about varying daily routines a little.
• Pace yourself - don't use all your best ideas in the first few days (you'll wear them and yourself out and you'll struggle to keep up the variation later).
• Expect bad weather - think about some ideas that will work in rainy weather as well. It's called the "Law of Holidays" - expect lots of wet weather and a day or two of sick kids.

The Slow Death of Imagination and Creativity at School - Part 1

Creativity and imagination are not simply a gift to some—they are available to all. Children are born with an innate desire to explore the world. From birth, they receive a vast array of stimuli as they use their senses to observe and try to make sense of their surroundings. The environment in which they live has a profound impact on them. We now understand that poverty, early stress, maltreatment, trauma, neglect and lack of stimulation have a negative effect on early learning. While children commence life with great potential - notwithstanding genetic variations in potential - their environment can have negative as well as positive effects on their learning.

 

Above: A 'Big' Sister reads to Lydia (age 1 day)

The potential impact of poverty and neglect on children's early development, simply underlines the need to ensure that children entering school are given every opportunity to be stimulated, inspired and taught. With this as background to the ‘outrageous’ title of my post, I hope you can understand why I am perplexed when I observe how schooling is being dumbed down. And let me say up front, I don’t see this as the fault of teachers. In fact, many others need to shoulder the bulk of the blame.

Neuroscience research has taught us a number of things about the young brain, including the immense capacity of children to learn, and for their minds to expand when stimulated. But across our school education system in Australia, I see a dumbing down of the curriculum, as state and nationally mandated testing, seems increasingly to shape school programs and classroom practices, as well as wider community expectations. The impact of these forces has driven schools to teach to the test. The Australian annual national assessment of schools (NAPLAN) tests children in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 in spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy. Of course, these represent little more than basic skills and essential learning.

So, what has this to do with creativity? In a nutshell, as schools spend more of their time teaching to the test, they inevitably need to discard activities that expand horizons, stretch minds, introduce new skills and encourage self-directed and motivated learning. But can schools actually kill creativity in the young? Sadly it can, and contrary to some views, I believe all children have the capacity to imagine, create and explore from the moment they can observe and use their senses to explore their world. From birth, children are gifted with an ability to observe and assess their world and ultimately explore it.  

The famous Social Philosopher Martin Buber suggested at an education conference in 1925 that imagination and creativity are not developed over time. As a philosopher, he was surprised to be invited to open an education conference. But he was intrigued, or perhaps annoyed by the title - "The development of the creative powers in the child". Buber opened the conference by saying he was troubled by the conference theme.

Above: Philosopher Martin Buber

Buber commenced his talk by declaring that the only words in the title of the conference that didn’t trouble him were "in the child". While the "child" he conceded is a reality, he saw no purpose in the idea that we can "develop creative powers in the child." Why? Because Buber suggested each child is born with a disposition inherited from the "riches of the human race" to be creative. That is, creativity is within all children from birth. This he described as an "originator instinct." They are born with innate ability to be creative and I'd add, to imagine. All that parents, teachers or schools can do is either suppress this inbuilt creativity, or drive it from them with banal activities. Such work I’d suggest is often set at a level that does not invite our students to push beyond what they know and can do. That is, they lack the encouragement and activities to help them explore their world and learn new things.

Buber went on to suggest that this disposition was to be found in every child from birth, and is nothing more than the capacity "...to receive and imagine the world... that is the whole environment, nature and society." This of course is primarily a capacity that only humans possess. As we help to form the world we create around the child, we can do one of two things: "draw out these powers", or stifle them if done badly. What we offer in schools is the provision of "...a selection of the world." In short, each child is born with an innate ability and desire to explore, imagine and create. We can shut this down by our actions, or encourage it and build on their innate desire to explore, create and imagine.

Of course, 'freedom' is an element of the child's education that is vitally important. A level of freedom to explore and create, that can either open up, or perhaps shut down their innate quest to know, explore, experiment, imagine and create. For most children, the first few years of life offer ample opportunities to explore, experiment and seek to push beyond their capacity to do most things. Preschool for most children can still offer freedom to explore, find out, imagine and act upon the creative urge they have to know and create. But by Kindergarten they begin to be trained to produce that which is seen as acceptable.

Above: A three year old doing some 'creative' writing

Within a year or two of the commencement of school the die is cast. The pressure to learn what is seen as the basics, increasingly dominates all that most parents and schools end up doing. With each passing year, less freedom is allowed for children to imagine and explore 'what if'? What might be? How might schools do this? I will offer just five ways that schools can potentially kill imagination and creativity.

 

• First, ensure that they teach everyone the same thing. There was a time when virtually all primary school teachers would assume they should operate with three or more ability groups for subjects like reading, writing, spelling and maths. Today, our schools frequently use the same activities for the whole class, with only minimal activities to extend or offer remedial help.

• Second, primary school teachers can send home identical homework for the entire class. With single worksheets in spelling, mathematics and so on.

• Third, make sure content and teaching aims to teach the average child to ensure that all class members will do well on state mandated tests of basic skills for testing regimes. Forget activities that stretch, just teach to the middle.

• Fourth, empty the curriculum of ‘non-essentials’ activities like the creative, open ended, unpredictable, and explorative.

• Fifth, begin to judge our teachers at a systemic level based on their ability to produce 'cookie cutter' children who do well on basic skills tests. And give school leaders a key role to ensure that teachers drill and offer practice for weeks in the lead up to any state or national testing regimes.
  

If my claims are only 'half-true', what a terrible indictment it is for our education system, that in the quest to give all children opportunities to learn and reproduce what is seen as basic and essential, we limit the extension of schooling for those who can do better than average. As well, in some cases we also end up doing too little for children with need of additional support. Of course, mandated testing isn't the only reason for the slow killing of the ability of our children to demonstrate creativity and imagination. But it has delivered a deadly blow! 

 

But before the teachers who read my blog feel I’m blaming them, this isn’t so. Families, some employers, politicians, and educational administrators, are all complicit collaborators with state and federal governments in the sanitizing of curricula, the removal of teacher professional development, and the crowding of the curriculum with much dross that deflects from learning that matters. All of us must share the blame for the slow death of the stimulation of imagination and creativity in our schools. Yes! This is a shared responsibility.

 

In a future post, I’ll outline what might just help to turn this ship around.