Rantu Moni Deka is a busy man! As a Block Resource Person with Pratham in the Kamrup district of Assam, he works closely with schools who are a part of Pratham’s flagship program: Read India. The programme aims to improve the reading, writing and basic arithmetic skills of children between 6-14 years.

As a part of Read India, Pratham has initiated 'Reading Week'  in 'Lakhon Mein Ek' villages across the country. Block Resource Persons go into villages with the aim of setting up a library with the help of the community. There are 48 schools that come under the two blocks that Rantu is the resource person for. He is personally involved with  6 Read India Schools and 12 library villages.

The two time Reading Champion, was inspired to start translating stories for children when he read Rukmini Banerji’s  'दीदी का रंग बिरंगा खज़ाना'. It was the first story he translated to Assamese using StoryWeaver.

    

“The students have access to a library in school, but the books there are meant for much bigger children - high school and college degree. The children of course are not interested in them at all.” shared Rantu. “So when I downloaded my translation to a laptop and read it to them, they just loved it. They were so happy with the colourful pictures and a story that was written just for children.” remembers Rantu.

   

“Seeing how happy the children were when I shared the story with them inspired me to translate more and more stories to Assamese” says Rantu who has now translated 14 stories on StoryWeaver.

 

You can read all of Rantu's translations on StoryWeaver here.

“I have shared the stories and shown the StoryWeaver platform to my colleagues at Pratham and to teachers at the schools.” says Rantu who wants to encourage more of his colleagues to use the site. Rantu has conducted reading sessions with children and teachers in almost all the schools that he works with.

 “The teachers have all been very impressed with the platform and the idea behind it. They all agreed that such stories with bright and beautiful illustrations will encourage children to read more and help them become more skilled readers.”

Also on his to-do list is creating a simple reading App.

“Access to internet connection and computers can be a challenge. But everyone has a mobile phone, including the parents of the children we work with. A simple app which children can read stories on will give them access to books at home where they can continue improving their reading.”

We are so impressed by Rantu’s passion and enthusiasm for helping more children read joyful books in a language they are fluent in. We’ll keep you posted with more news from Rantu about his translations and reading app.

Do you work with children? Would you like to help translate stories to languages they are fluent in? Do you know someone who is using StoryWeaver to translate or share stories with underserved children? Write to [email protected] and tell us.

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Welcome to day 2 of #WonderWhyWeek! Today's book is 'Let's Go Seed Collecting' by Neha Sumitran and Archana Sreenivasan and guest edited by Bijal Vaccharajani. Join Tooka, Poi, and their best friend Inji the dog, as they go around collecting seeds. The adventure begins when the three friends meet Pacha the tamarind tree.

After you read the story why not step outside and take a walk around the neighbourhood to see how many trees you can spot? Plus, here are a few super fun activities to try!

ACTIVITIES

Tree 20 Questions 

Resources

● Blank visitings cards

● Cellotape

● Markers 

● Timer 

How to play 

● Write down the names of trees and plants on blank visiting cards. 

● Divide the group into batches of 4-5 children each. 

● A volunteer from the group will come up and choose a card without seeing what’s written on it

● Stick the card to the volunteer’s forehead without letting them see the name of the tree.

● The volunteer returns to their group. Everyone else in the group can see the name of the tree. 

● The volunteer then begins to ask questions about their plant. The team can only answer yes or no. Egs Do I produce an oil? Am I fruit bearing? Do I grow in India? The volunteer has to guess which tree he is in 20 questions or in under 90 seconds. 

Hopping Corn

You’ve heard about pop corn what about hopping corn? This experiment makes corn hop up and down repeatedly in a container for over an hour. It’s so much fun to watch! 

Resources 

• A clear glass container

• Popping corn 

• 2 1/2 – 3 cups of water 

• 2 Tbsp. of baking soda 

• 6 Tbsp. of white vinegar 

• Food colouring (optional) 

What to do

 ● Fill the glass container with water and add a couple drops of food colouring. 

● Add baking soda and stir well until it has completely dissolved. 

● Add a small handful of popping corn kernels. 

● Add the vinegar and watch the corn start to hop up and down! 

This is a terrific way to work on measurement concepts, listening skills, and practising patience too! 

The science behind it 

When the baking soda and vinegar combine, they react to form carbon dioxide (CO2) gas. The gas forms bubbles in the water which circle around the corn kernels. The bubbles lift the kernels up to the surface and when they get there they pop and the kernels sink again. The “hopping” continues until the vinegar and baking soda have finished reacting. 

Seed Search

Resources

• Printed Word Searches 
• Timer 
• Highlighter pens 
• Divide the group into teams give them a pre-printed word search or crosswords with a seed/plant theme. The first team to finish in 10 minutes gets a prize! 

Here are some links to ready made word searches

• http://www.havefunteaching.com/worksheets/word-search-puzzles/plants-word-search-worksheet 
• https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/seedsword.pdf 
• http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/seeds-seedlings-word-search/ 

Do you have ideas of your own for seed themed activities? Share them with us in the comments section below or on Twitter or Facebook.

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FINALLY! The results for Pratham Books’ Retell, Remix and Rejoice contest 2018 is here! A big thank you to all the participants for taking part, and being super patient with us as the judges read through each of your wonderful stories.

This year we received a whopping 115+ entries. We were pleased to see even more original language entries than previous years. We received 55 stories in English, 29 in Hindi, 14 in Marathi, 11 in Tamil and 6 stories in Kannada!

Our panel of judges were impressed with the quality of the stories submitted and the creativity of the authors. All 115 entries were read, re-read and then read once again by Pratham Books’ crack team of editors who have a deep and abiding love for children's picture books.

And now, on to the results! Drum roll please! This year, we have 3 winning finalists:

 

Each finalist will receive a gift hamper of books from Pratham Books and will have a one-on-one feedback session with a Pratham Books editor. One final story will then be chosen for illustration.

Here’s what our judges had to say about the finalists’ stories!

मेरी सबसे प्यारी वाली नानी  “You can never have enough grandmothers! The story was refreshing because of its different but quirky grandmothers. Each grandmother had something interesting to offer to her grandchild! It was lovely that the writer had placed no limitations on what women are capable of doing and enjoying with their family.”

What Did I Catch in the Garden? “The rambling, meandering way the protagonist finds her way towards an original poem was quite lovely!"

We Are A Family  “Inclusive, diverse, respectful of a child's curiosity - what’s not to love about this story?”

Congratulations to our finalists! You’ll be hearing from us shortly via email. 

Read all the Retell, Remix and Rejoice entries.

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