Susie Will Not Speak by Shruthi Rao was one of the first hOle books I read, and it remains one of my favourites. Jahan and Susie leap out of the pages - sparkling characters that make the story what it is.Susie has a lisp. How can she say even her own name without proclaiming her lisp to the world? There's just one solution. Susie will not speak. Ever. What can her best friend Jahan do? NOT Speaking What if you refuse to speak? How else can you communicate? We can use the chat box, charades, artwork, and even make up a sign language of our own. During our very first class, that's exactly what we'll do! Poems Bullies make up mean rhymes about Susie, but those rhymes don't even make sense. Surely, we can do better! We'll try to make up rhymes about ourselves - and they'll make sense too! Tongue Twisters A noise annoys an … [Read more...]
Mini’s Books
Books about books are always a joy to read at my book club! We're reading In the Woof of Time at my reading programme for ages nine and ten and Mini's Books at the one for ages seven and eight.Anyone who grew up on Enid Blyton wanted to eat scones, crumpets and treacle. I was one of them, and so, this book is all the more believable. Mini wants to eat the food the Big Little Monsters in the books she reads eat. And through her summer holidays, she slowly learns more and more about these monsters--and discovers all the surprising consequences of reading books! Thanks to her stories, she makes a friend, becomes a detective, learns to entertain herself and even starts to cook! Monster Stories I love monster stories! The wonderful thing about monsters is that they can take any form whatsoever. They can be tiny or huge, friendly or ferocious. … [Read more...]
In the Woof of Time
A book club mystery - of course I had to explore the possibility of introducing it to my book club!Samar and his friends find themselves in the middle of a spate of thefts - a dog, milk bottles, and even jewellery. They love reading mystery stories, so this they must investigate the mystery that surrounds them! Will they do it in the woof of time? Clues and Puzzles As we read In the Woof of Time, we'll engage in a little code-making and code-breaking of our own. Detective stories and cryptograms go together! Alibis and Red Herrings A lot of words and phrases are associated with detective stories alone. As we read In the Woof of Time, we'll do a vocabulary quiz, testing how many of these words are familiar to us. Creating a Detective Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, the Five Find-Outers and Dog ... So … [Read more...]
The Perfect Present
We've read two books from the Ready, Freddy series at my book club, and I'm happy to read another! While I cannot say I love the books, I see how well they suit a book club. They are easy to read, full of illustrations, and great conversation starters. The Perfect Present is a Christmas story. Freddy is making a list of everything he wants for Christmas. His list is endless, but predictably, the story leads us towards an understanding of the spirit of Christmas. Book Activities The Ready, Freddy series is full of readymade activities - finding the hidden fin in each picture, a word puzzle, and a craft activity too! Festivals I remember a book club session some time ago when a child told us all about Onam! A book about Christmas will be the prompt for the children to talk about their favourite festivals--which ones they celebrate, … [Read more...]
The Worst Witch to the Rescue
I used to read The Worst Witch as a child! I had no idea whether I would still enjoy reading about the hapless Mildred Hubble, though. I picked up The Worst Witch to the Rescue without having decided whether to introduce it to my book club--and I loved it all over again! It's funny, sweet and full of action; I'm sure my book clubbers will enjoy the book too. Quizzes and Vocabulary Games Most children love fantasy. I look forward to doing a few magical games with them - a word search puzzle on words related to magic, a quiz about famous magical places, and perhaps an activity on creating a witch together too! The Rule of Three It's never too early to get children to start looking at how books are structured. The rule of three, for instance, is a fascinating one. How many characters come together at the centre of the story? What … [Read more...]
Sita’s Chitwan
Last year, I invited Vaishali Shroff to conduct a workshop for my writing programme on nonfiction. It was aptly called 'Non-Boring Nonfiction'. I rarely read nonfiction, and I don't think I've ever read nonfiction with my book club. I find it easier to introduce nonfiction elements through books like A Cello on the Wall and A Giant Leap.Once more, that is what I will be doing with Sita's Chitwan. Half the book is a story, the story of eight-year-old Sita, who lives on the outskirts of Chitwan National Park. The other half of the book lets us explore Chitwan National Park, introducing us to its vegetation, people, animals and birds. I'm waiting to read this book with my book clubbers next month! Paw Prints Often, when we visit the jungle, guides tell us that the job of a guide is much like the job of a detective. Following tracks, looking for … [Read more...]
Flyaway Boy
We're going to read Flyaway Boy again at my book club! We've read and enjoyed When the World Went Dark by Jane de Suza twice, and I look forward to reading this one with another batch too. It's perfect to discuss so many things - form, narrative voice, imagination, possibility ... The list of ideas below just about scratches the surface of everything we can do with the book! Boxes Flyaway Boy opens with a bit about boxes. What neat little boxes do we fit into? Are there any labels we give ourselves, or any labels people give us? Especially as many of the children join my book club batch after batch, I'd love to know if there are any labels they give one another. What labels do they associate with the others at the book club?It's an interesting introspective activity to undertake even without the context of the book because sometimes, we create … [Read more...]
Peanut Has a Plan
We read Peanut Vs the Piano over two years ago at my book club, and it was such fun! I wrote a blog post about one of the activities we did as we read the book, and I look forward to repeating the activity with a fresh batch of book clubbers as we read Peanut Has a Plan. This hOle book is a lovely little chapter book about determination and kindness. With an enterprising character at the centre of the story, what starts off as a desire to earn money becomes much more than that. Peanut, together with her twin brothers Papad and Pickle, comes up with one plan after another to show that she's responsible and can do something worth talking about at Show and Tell in school! Names Peanut, Papad and Pickle - I sure hope their parents named them after things they like! What if your parents named you after their favourite food? What would your name … [Read more...]
The ABCs of Blogging
What an informative session we had with Anupama Dalmia! Anupama began by discussing what blogging is. From there, we went on to so much more - blog formats (including vlogs and micro-blogs), finding your niche, and starting your own free blog. She then introduced the children to SEO and the backend, showing them how easy it is to start the process of blogging. Importantly, she answered the question of why blogging could be a good idea - to build a discipline around writing. Once we start blogging, there is often a sense of accountability, the idea that writing and posting content is something that we need to do regularly and systematically. Where do we begin? How do we get noticed? What can we do to increase the reach of our blog posts? Anupama discussed all this and more in a single hour! When guest speakers repeat something I keep saying in class, I'm always happy. For … [Read more...]
Character Design with Priyankar Gupta
Practice. What a difference practice makes! Right through yesterday's guest session on character design, I marvelled at how swiftly Priyankar Gupta created his characters. Talking all the time, explaining what he was doing, he was able to draw not one, but six full forms in fifteen minutes! Characters, both human and non-human, are led by three parts of the body – the chest, the nose and the pelvis.An inquisitive person tends to hunch. The whole body structure is led by the nose. A confident person is led by the chest. This is why people in the army, or even dancers, tend to have accentuated chests. All of us also have an aspect of us that is lazy, one that likes to sit and watch the world go by. This sort of character is led by the pelvis. Once Priyankar had shared a few sample drawings, he asked us to draw characters of our own. Soon, the children shared sketches … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- …
- 45
- Next Page »