Kindersite: Kid-Friendly Educational Links

Nick Peachey recommended Kindersite.org yesterday on his fantastic blog, so I thought I'd poke around a little bit. I did something similar with Curriki.org a month ago.

Kindersite's stated mission is twofold: first, the proprietors want to provide a portal to safe, educational content for children ages 2-8; second, they want to provide data to facilitate research on how children use such online content and how it affects their learning.

The first thing I find is a growing database of nursery rhymes in various languages. They have lyrics in the original language and in English. You can listen to some of them in mp3 form, and some of them have videos. I found myself a bit mesmerized by this Greek lullaby:






After a couple of dead ends, I find "Pictures as Words," a game from PBS's Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat page. This is a PBS series based on Amy Tan's childrens book of the same name. The game is very simple and would be a good way to introduce students to the idea that other alphabets are quite different (and perhaps more intuitive) than ours. Here's what it looks like:


Finally, I browse through Kindersite's treasure trove of story links. I end up having a story read to me about Mr. Happy and Mr. Stubborn, two characters created by Roger Hargreaves. This is a pretty exciting moment for me, as I had completely forgotten these books. Turns out there is now an animated Mr. Men series on Cartoon Network with a fun, kid-friendly website.


As you can see, my time on Kindersite led me to a lot of other places. Although I think their interface is a bit clunky, the proprietors of Kindersite are living up to the first part of their mission. Parents can feel completely secure turning their kids loose on this site. They will find a few time-wasters, to be sure, but they will be kid-friendly. A little more digging will turn up some serious educational gems. Happy hunting!

Spreading The Word With Twitter

If you are wondering about the utility of Twitter, take a look at The Friday Project's Twitter feed here. The Friday Project is "the only publishing company that specialises (sic-Brits) in sourcing the brightest talent from the web and developing it into great books."

The started a Twitter account yesterday, offering a free book to their first ten followers. They had ten in less than an hour and now, fifteen hours later, they have 74.

What implications might this have for educators, you ask? Well, imagine a world where all of your students and their parents were hooked up to something like Twitter. This would be helpful in my native South Dakota where school cancellation is just a mid-April blizzard away. It makes phone trees look like smoke signals.

Or, let's say you are hooked up with hundreds of other teachers from all over the world. You need a good attention-getter for your second hour language class; first hour never really got on board with your lesson about how speakers of other languages make sounds we've never even thought of. Within minutes, you have found the perfect thing:

Watch Amazing Beat Box Girl on CollegeHumor

Pretty cool, eh? And The Friday Project has five more followers than it did when I started this post.

Oh, and you can follow Literacy Log on Twitter here.

Web Resource: Storyline Online

In my "Jumping Off" post featuring Jen Robinson's Book Page, I mentioned Storyline Online, where you can watch videos of SAG members reading children's books. SAG is The Screen Actors Guild, which runs the site in conjunction with its Book Pals program.

I don't know if watching Bradley Whitford (of West Wing fame) read a story would be as inspiring to a young reader as it was to me, but I got chills. Because of the site's layout, I can't provide links to individual stories. But I can list a few of the highlights for you. The URL is storylineonline.net. Here are some highlights:

• James Earl Jones reading To Be A Drum, by Evelyn Coleman
• Al Gore reading Brave Irene, by William Steig
• Sean Astin reading A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon
• Elijah Wood reading Me And My Cat?, by Satoshi Kitamura
• Camryn Manheim reading Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson
• And.... Hillary Duff reading Romeow & Drooliet, by Nina Laden

Each video is accompanied by a long list of activities that can accompany reading/listening. You can also download a PDF "Activity Guide" with information about the book, a biography of the reader, and related internet resources.

Jumping Off: Jen Robinson's Book Page

Here we begin what will become a regular feature of Literacy Log. We'll start with a website or blog about literacy and follow their featured links to see what we find.

Today's featured site is Jen Robinson's Book Page. Jen focuses on children's books. She explores ways to get books into the hands of children and increase adult interest in childrens' books. Her blog is packed with book reviews and children's literacy news. This "Reviews That Made Me Want To Read The Book" entry is a good example of what Jen's up to.

Jen Robinson's Book Page - Graphic created at Wordle.com.

A few minutes exploring Jen's "Other Children's Literacy Links" section led me to the following places:

• Beginning With Books - Best Books for Babies Archive. Nine years' worth of young children's book recommendations from children's lit experts Dr. Joan Brest Friedberg and Elizabeth Segel.
• Book Pals. - Started in L.A. in 1993, this program aims to foster a love of reading in young children by having trained actors read to them. Their Storyline site is a fabulous resource. At the moment, it features a video of Evelyn Coleman's To Be A Drum being read by James Earl Jones. (BookPals has a Minnesota chapter, too!)
• Inside Out Writers - A Los Angeles-based nonprofit that conducts writing classes withing the Los Angeles Country Juvenile Hall System. Their Writing From The Inside feature gives you a chance to read some amazing student work.
• Literacy Launchpad - A blog run by Amy, an emerging literacy teacher and mother in Nashville, TN. Here, Amy and her readers discuss pre-reading skills that parents can teach their children from birth.
  
• Mission: Making a Love of Reading Happen - In this his article, featured on Amy's blog, New York Times columnist Michael Winerip discusses the various methods he has used to foster a love of reading in his sometimes-resistent children.

That's it for today! A big thank you to Jen Robinson, who has no idea we're using her blog as a jumping off point. And, as always, tell us what you think about these links and others you stumble upon!