Items filtered by date: February 2021
Book Review - The Miracle on Sunderbaag Street
Book Review - The Miracle On Sunderbaag Street
An inspiring picture book about how one person's initiative can bring about a positive change in the environment
- Publisher: Kalpavriksh
- Supported by: Parag Initiative of Tata Trusts
- Author: Nandita Da Cunha
- Illustrator: Priya
- For Ages: 6-8
- Type: Picture Book
- Format: Paperback
- Genre: Children Fiction
- Theme: Environment
- Price: ₹100
The Miracle on Sunderbaag Street is a vivid picture books about a little girl, Zara who lives at Sunderbaag Street. On this street is a dump yard where she spends her evenings. One such evening she meets her teacher, Mrs. Gappi who reveals to her how this dump yard was once a beautiful garden.
Zara is influenced and inspired by this story and takes up the project to revive Sunderbaag. This book tells this story of how Zara brings about this change, who she enlists for help, what ideas she comes up with and how she converts the dump yard to its previous glory.
This story reinforces our ideas and thoughts about the power of nature in our lives and how we as a community can make a difference. It highlights how we can practice waste management in our surrounding communities and how this can bring about a transformation. The reader will take home an understanding of value of efforts, hope, optimism, and our contribution to the environment and community work. It subtly tells readers how one can take certain matters in own hands and take an initiative to bring about a positive change. Ultimately the story gives the reader a feel-good factor and is definitely inspiring.
This book is great for a read-aloud and a wonderful story to demonstrate values like responsibility and team work. The eye-catching illustrations by Priya Kuriyan are done in a 3D collage style that is bound to get children creative.
Did you know? This book has been inspired by a project - Dream Grove project that was run by residents of D’Monte Park Street (Bandra, Mumbai) that worked to nurture an organic farm they have created inside the park.
Post Reading Activities:
1. Upcycle materials that you want to throw into a collage themed around the environment.
2. Enlist your friends from your community to make a vegetable patch or a flower garden in your community.
3. Does your community have a e-waste point? Find out what happens to e-waste and how to recycle them.
Discussion Ideas:
1. Sustainability
2. Upcycling and Recycling
3. Benefits of green space / lung space
4. Community service / Volunteering
BUY THE BOOK
‘Books Don’t Speak, But They Say A Lot!’ Book Recommendations By Jyotsna, Rabbit Hole Children Bookstore In Sara Chats
‘Books Don’t Speak, But They Say A Lot!’ Book Recommendations By Jyotsna, Rabbit Hole Children Bookstore In Sara Chats
Make the most of reading aloud with children - Tips and Ideas
Join us in raising readers. Read with your children every day!
Reading books and sharing stories and rhymes regularly with your child from an early age can help create a lifelong reader. It is easy to make reading aloud with your children a fun activity.
Here are some simple tips to get the most out of reading together with your children. These can be used with children of any age!
Tips to Make the most of reading aloud with children
1. Set aside specific reading time. Find a quiet and comfortable place. Turn off all distractions - TV, computers, etc.
2. Pick interesting topics. Reread favorites. Borrow a variety of library books. It would be even better to let the child pick a book. This can show them that you care about their opinions and thoughts, and this can make children more likely to be involved in the book.
3. Have fun and enjoy reading together. Smile, relax and focus on your child. Sit close together and encourage your children to hold the book themselves and/or allow them to turn the pages.
4. Read with enthusiasm and expression. Change your voice, volume, and tempo. Don't be afraid to use funny and silly voices - children love this! Make it a time for you both to enjoy together.
5. Pause to talk about the story, words, and pictures. Relate illustrations to something your child knows. Don't rush through the book. Wait until the child wants to move to the next page. Let them savour the pictures. Explain any new concepts that they may not understand.
6. Engage them in conversations by asking children to describe the characters or situation or why something is happening. Ask them what will happen next, how a character might be feeling or how the book makes them feel. Encourage them to retell the story by looking at the illustrations. Give your child time to respond. This helps children understand relationships and is a great way to get to know them or discuss difficult issues.
7. If your child can read and wants to read, let him read. Be positive and patient while he reads. Appreciate their effort.
So, have you read with a child today?
7 Reasons to take your children to the library
Reading is brain food!
I don't have to look far to find treasures, I discover them every time I visit a library."
-Michael Embry
Research shows that reading aids in brain development, more so in your child’s early years of life. When kids are read to, their brain cells are turned on, and existing links among brain cells are strengthened and new cell links are formed. Libraries play a very important role in helping children enjoy reading and helping them practice the skill. Libraries no longer just provide access to books; they promote book clubs, author meets, reading events, storytelling, rhyme time and much more! Whether big or small, your local library can give your whole range of benefits that go far beyond books. Here are 7 good reasons to take your children to the library today:
take your children to the library - Here is Why
- Easy access to Education and Entertainment
A visit to the library provides children with access to a variety of books and magazines; more than we can afford to buy. At the library, you can check out books, turn your books back in as soon as they’re read, and take home a whole new pile – all without worrying about your budget! Libraries provide access to many edutainment opportunities – from author workshops to book clubs and more. A library is they a treasure trove of stuff to do! - Community building
Libraries are a hub for all things information, or workshops and events. Thus it is a fantastic place to meet people and foster a sense of community togetherness. It provides a safe place for people, of all ages, whether like-minded or different to connect with others. At a library, children engage with books and magazines, with librarians, and with other kids! Thus, library time is not just passive but active and exciting! - Responsibility, Sharing & Caring for community property
Libraries require you to check out books and this very act teaches kids an important lesson in sharing resources and taking care of things. They know they are responsible to handle community property and treat it well so they can, in turn, pass it on to the next reader. - Place of Culture
Libraries introduce children to the art as well as the artists. Workshops and events at libraries expose children to culture. Not just that, they meet the authors or the storytellers or the poets and learn to appreciate their culture and community. Many libraries offer regular children’s programs that make stories come to life - Puppets, costumes, and animated storytellers and more! - Foster Literacy
Regular visits to the library, inevitably encourage reading! Reading is also one of the best activities to provide the foundational language and literacy skills your child needs to succeed. Libraries provide avenues to improve literacy through not just books but also reading programs, contests, writing workshops etc. Thus, libraries also play a role in improving academic performance. - Piques Curiosity and Discovery in children
Libraries are “casual discovery” by nature. So children can browse books without pressure to buy. This allows them to be serendipitous. You will never know what they may like. And still, they can try it at low risk. Children are also more likely to read books that they pick themselves!
. - Recommendations
When you walk into a library you get recommendations for books that you may not know of or think of from the librarian. This can broaden children’s tastes and expand their minds and vocabularies.
Take your kids to the library. It offers more than just a short-term benefit.
So get your child a library membership! Celebrate the moment and go home and read!
Check out these inspirational libraries from around the world! Support your local library!
A Guide to Online Story Resources for Children - Read-Aloud, Audio Stories and more!
A Guide to Online Story Resources for Children - Read-Aloud, Audio Stories and more!
A guide to an unlimited resource of read-aloud stories and good audio stories that you can playback for your children before they drift off to sleep.
People would stand in line for days and pay hundreds of dollars
if there were a pill that could do everything for a child that reading aloud does.
It expands their interest in books, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and attention span.
Simply put, it’s a free oral vaccine for literacy.
Jim Trelease
For children, stories are the window to the outside world. They make children dream of great adventures! Reading aloud stories is a regular part of many childhood experiences. Nothing beats the comfort of being tucked into bed at night while parents read a story from favorite books. These stories fill heads with imagination, hearts with comfort, and souls with a desire to see and experience more.
A good imagination blooms with reading books or listening to stories. In this digital age, we should maximize the internet and the tools it provides to encourage a child’s skills. Reading aloud stories or audio stories to them could be that first spark.
We have put together this guide to websites that offer online stories or read-aloud across a range of ages, abilities, and languages. Try them with your children. They are loads of fun!! And you have a never ending resource of read-aloud stories and good audio stories that you can playback for your children anytime.
Pratham StoryWeaver
StoryWeaver from Pratham Books is designed to provide children with reading resources. It is a digital gateway to thousands of richly illustrated, open-licensed children's stories in mother tongue languages. It is also a first-of-its-kind platform that provides easy-to-use tools to create, adapt, and translate new stories for children. It's the ideal place for parents, educators, writers, translators, and illustrators to come together to weave new stories for children and help to create a pathway to nurture the next generation of readers!
StorylineOnline
This website, a project of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, features actors reading children’s books aloud. There is a huge selection of stories to choose from, and the site is easy for even kindergarteners to navigate. The videos facilitate between the actors reading the book in a storytime setting to close-ups of the illustrations. Storyline Online is an award-winning children’s story site.
Storyberries
Storyberries offers a free, easily accessible online collection of quality stories, comics, fairy tales and poems for children. They are available in an easy to read format with vibrant illustrations designed to excite children and engage them in reading. The stories are organized by themes and they also offer discussion guides for parents.
Storynory
Storynory could be your download source as it has a huge bank of free audio stories and poems for children. Choose from fairytales, classics, Bible stories, educational stories, and also quite a few original ones.
OpenLibrary
Open Library offers classic literature for free. It has a huge collection of 22,000+ books and is a historical treat to turn the pages and read them too because many of the scanned copies are from the original editions.
International Children’s Digital Library
The online children’s library has a single purpose mission of providing free access to children’s literature from around the world. The site is well organized and you can explore the free children’s books stocked here by country, doing a simple search, or by using the many other story browsing methods listed. The site supports quite a few international languages too. The Award-Winning Books section has some of the best online stories for kids. You can register for free to save favorite books, set your preferred language, and also bookmark pages of books you plan to come back to.
Read.gov
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library. It has a huge digital collection and page-turning technology so you can pick from a huge swathe of classic children’s literature. The site encourages readers of all ages to discover the wonderful world of books.
FreeChildrensStories.com
Freechildrenstories.com offers traditional, meaningful storytelling to every child, parent, or teacher around the globe with access to the internet, for free.
OxfordOwl
Oxford University Press created this site to support children’s learning through books and stories. It is also meant for parents who want a one-stop resource for children’s books and other reading activities.The Library has more than 150 e-books to support your child’s reading plus free teaching resources, including storytelling videos, eBooks and downloadable worksheets and teaching notes.
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Mrs. P’s Magic Library
Kathy Kinney stars as the grandmotherly Mrs. P, who sits on her couch and reads a classic children’s book aloud. Ideal for age groups of 3+ to 6+, there are also a few stories for 9 and 11-year-olds. You can check out the video selections and use the dropdown filters to select the ones you want to watch. Every story also offers read-along options so children can see the words.
Stories For Kids
Stories for Kids is a website dedicated to providing free and available stories for children, young adults, and teenagers. The stories found on this site are all free from copyright or in the public domain for the enjoyment of kids of all ages.
Starfall: I’m Reading!
Starfall is an extremely popular website for early phonics development. The “I’m Reading!” library section of this site is full of books, plays, and comics. They have a wide variety of books, and also offer the ability to get help with a word here and there, or click to hear the entire thing read.
The Professor Garfield Toon Book Reader
Graphic beginning readers are very important for people developing their reading skills. This site itself is full of resources for parents and educators, as well as a section for kids.
Pratilipi.com
Pratilipi is India's largest digital platform connecting readers and writers. They offer stories in 12 Indian languages!
ReadPrint.com
This site has books of all genres and there is a considerable collection of free children’s books too. It allows book to be read online in a clean clutter-free interface and does not need a registration.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
Global Digital Library
This site provides access to free, high-quality, early grade reading resources in languages that children use and understand.
Magic Keys - Children's Storybooks Online
This site has original stories with color illustrations for young children as well as older children and young adults. They combine education and entertainment to amuse and engage children's imaginations. There are riddles, mazes, coloring book pages and a page with children's links that have won Children's Storybooks Online Award for excellence.
AmericanLiterature.com
This site has a wide collection of stories organized into various categories like Short Stories, Mystery, Science Fiction and more!
Stories to Grow By
This site has a collection of Free Children's Storybooks Online can be read aloud or with Audio Narration. The collection consists of Children's Stories: Folktales from all over the world. You will find funny, heart-warming, inspirational and interesting short stories with morals for little kids, which are perfect for teaching such themes as Kindness, Courage, Friendship, and Gratitude.
Kickstart a Reading Habit in Your Kids Today
There are many ways to promote reading books and listening to stories, but these sites can add value to "real reading". E-books, audiobooks, and comics are all beneficial in the reading journey. We strongly recommend that you view the sites before introducing them to your children to make sure the content is age or grade-appropriate. Do you use any websites to share stories or read-aloud with your children? Do share with us in the comments.
