Khyati Datt writes about the recent StoryWeaver workshop  with teachers, librarians, social workers and storytellers in Chennai.

Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, is known as the gateway to South India and is home to many organisations doing exemplar work in the education space. StoryWeaver has a number of partners in the city and we  were motivated to connect with more such organisations. This brought us to Chennai to conduct a StoryWeaver workshop, our very first in the city.  We invited various organisations and individuals that worked with children with an idea to discuss how learning and reading can go hand-in-hand.

40 participants, from 15 different organisations joined us for a day of discussions, storytelling and creating stories of their own. Some of the organisations that we got to interact with were Vidyarambam Trust, India Literacy Project, Isha Vidhya, Katha on Ratha, Communities Rising and Pratham Education Foundation .  It was wonderful  to see that they were as excited about the workshop as we were.

The workshop began with a quick round of introductions and a question- What would you have been doing, if you had not been working with children?  The answers we got were interesting and really creative!  We then spoke about Pratham Books and started the demo of the StoryWeaver platform. We had a storyteller in the audience who volunteered to do a spontaneous story reading session and made all of us think of creative answers to her questions and ensured that there were lots of giggles.

Storytelling in action

The participants then tried their hand at using StoryWeaver  by curating a reading list for a specific theme. Some of the themes they worked with were life skills and nature. Throughout the course of the session, the participants shared with us anecdotes from the field and why they think stories are important. Their takeaway from this task were the different ways in which stories can be used to teach themes and engage with children.

The participants then moved on to the most creative part of the session, the part where they create stories. One of the stories explored a child’s imagination of his dream school, with lollypops growing on trees. Everyone was excited about letting their imagination run wild and presented their thoughts and process behind their stories.

Nelson from Communities Rising shares the story he created at the workshop.

We  introduced the audience to the kind of stories that are hosted on StoryWeaver, the different ways in which these stories can be used with children and how other organisations are using the platform. Along with the participants, we mapped the different kinds of books on the StoryWeaver platform to the Listening-Speaking-Reading-Writing(LSRW) framework of Language Development and a discussion ensued with the participants about it. The participants shared their ideas on how they think stories can be used in a classroom and the ways in which children can be introduced to difficult concepts using stories.

The session ended with inspiring videos about individuals using stories to get children excited and  pushing them to think out of the box.

A big thank you to all our participants for being patient and interacting with us and each other throughout!

To see more pictures from the workshop, click here. 

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Hello teachers!

We recently concluded our illustration campaign #Spotathon on StoryWeaver. We asked illustrators to create one spotting illustrations for us to help crowdsource a FREE spotting book for children. We've had the most  wonderful time looking at all the incoming entries and illustrators really expanded their imagination creating spotting illustrations set in a music room, markets, gardens, kitchens and even staff rooms :)

Spotting books can be a wonderful way to engage children, develop pre-reading skills and most important of all, they're just SO MUCH FUN! Our Outreach Manager, Payoshni Saraf put together a chotu list of spotting books for all those lovely teachers out there to use in you classroom!  

Nature Trail Rajiv Eipe brings his love for birding (or bird watching) to his entry. In 'A Nature Trail' a photographer takes pictures of birds, animals and isects that she sees on a nature walk. Can you spot them all?

An Evening at the Spice Market Megha Vishwanathan brings to life the smells and sounds of an evening market place in this beautifully detailed illustration. 

Space Station Booyakasha Are you ready for zero gravity? Blast off through stratosphere in Greystroke's fun and zany outerspace adventure!   

A Class Photo Hair oiled and combed? Ribbons in place? No funny faces or rabbit ears please! Let's line up and look for all the wonderful quirks Vidya Gopal wants us to find in her creation 'A Class Photo'. 

The Marketplace To market! To market! Shopping has never been as colourful and vibrant as it is in Niloufer Wadia's Spotathon entry 'The Marketplace'. What will you spot and buy? 

Messy Miss Mita Oh ho! Look's like Miss Mita has NOT tidied up her room. Help her tidy up won't you? But only AFTER you've spotted everything. 

and a special one for our dear teachers-  Paper Boat goes to the Staff Room Team Paper Boat has really captured the nuances of the Staff Room. Can you see yourself in this illustration dear teacher? Or perhaps one of your colleagues? 

 

We hope you and your students have lots of fun in the classroom with these Spotathon entries! Do write to us and tell us how YOU used them in the classroom and what your children thought at [email protected] 

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The cutest, warmest, furriest, squishiest and bubbly cheeks-pull worthy photos of kids are the ones in which they are cuddling up with a loving animal. Well now, we can't send an animal your way (We are hopeful that the crazy futuristic era will have an easy animal courier service so that we can all share different pets in different states… or even countries… ! Ah! What a bliss! But we digress…). So, until that future hops, skips and prances up to us, what we CAN give you is a list of books instead that you can cuddle up with, along with excited little humans. Books about animals- Funny, unpredictable, generous, strange, friendly, loud and just adorable.

Good Night, Tinku By Preethi Nambiar

Illustrator – Sonal Goyal, Sumit Sakhuja

Afraid of the dark? We all are sometimes. Here comes Tinku the dog, who explored the dark and found…. friends! Tag along where he wags on, and meet some new animals that are wide awake when you are deep asleep. From Hindi to Sanskrit, from French to Italian, we have all these translations available for you, and more!

Anaya's Thumb by Natasha Sharma

Illustrator – Ruchi Shah

Anaya has a bad habit. She keeps sucking her thumb! Know anyone like that? But then one day she went to the zoo and quit her bad habit. Read about the human and animal behavior she witnessed there to make this surprising decision. Apart from some Indian languages, this book is also available in German and Portuguese!

Sniffles, the Crocodile and Punch, the Butterfly by Herminder Ohri

Illustrator – Herminder Ohri

A big, strong animal that cries and a light as feather one that likes to punch! Let's go beyond the deceptive waters of someone's cover and read about this amazing frienship that… saved lives! Do you know Sniffles, the crocodile also speaks in Kiswahili and IsiXhosa? We have this story available in these two African languages too.

Clean Cat by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator – Deepa Balsavar

It doesn't matter how long you've been living somewhere, you will never know your neighborhood as well as a cat. This Clean Cat is up to all kinds of fun and antics. Read in 6 languages including Urdu, Marathi and two bilingual versions too!

Samira's Awful Lunch by Bharati Jagannathan

Illustrator – Preeti Krishnamurthy

How many of you have heard of kids complaining about what they got for lunch? *raises hand* You too? That's what we thought. Well, we have some very kind animals in this book who are willing to ideas for food alternatives. Do read and find out what Samira finally chooses!

(The Generous Crow) by Venkatramana Gowda

Illustrator - Padmanabh

It's hard to be in a classroom full of students feeling left out as you feel 'different' or smaller than the others. It's probably like being a small crow in a huge forest full of animals that seem better than you. This is a story in Assamese, Telegu and Tamil in which a crow 'Caws Caws' his way into a journey of self-identity and self-esteem.

 

Noisy Crows by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator - Deepa Balsavar

Here's another story about crows and this one is just plain NOISY! Available in Hindi, Marathi and Kannada along with English as bilingual books, make sure that you find out which animal likes this crow's singing.

The Jungle Book by Madhav Chavan, Meera Tendolkar

Illustrator - Ketan Raut

Translated in Punjabi and Odia, along with three African languages, this book follows the day of a few animal friends who hear about an exciting new development in the forest. Their jungle has a school! So they go in search of it and wait for the teacher. Guess who turns up?

Busy Ants by Kanchan Bannerjee

Illustrator – Deepa Balsavar

Have you ever seen ants just loitering about or sitting under a shade passing their time? No, they are always busy, and they have some unique traits and skills too! You can read all about them in Malayalam and Tamil, along with other languages!

 

भीमा गधा (Bheema, the Sleepyhead) by Kiran Kasturia

Illustrator – Shweta Mohapatra

Translated in 14 languages, this book tries to answer a fundamental question of our existence- How does a person (in this case, a donkey) wake up early in the morning? Bheema likes to sleep like a log, and it doesn't matter who tries to wake him up- a cow, crow or a dog! See what finally works for him. Maybe it will work for you too?

Do you have a favourite animal story? Tell us what it is in the comments, or on Twitter and Facebook!

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