Play-Doh and the 4 C's of skills

Play-Doh Shape & Learn - Numbers & Counting

Play-Doh has been a firm favourite in our house from early on. It does not look as there is a cut-off date for creating and learning with it! We received the Play-Doh Shape & Learn - Numbers & Counting set yesterday as a blog drop. The package states 2+, but I'm sure we can go until 100 years of age. It's a great family activity, and we love the fact that the creative possibilities and learning opportunities are endless.

Find the Cutes Playtime - a fun activity book for children

Find the Cutes Playtime - Kickstarter Project

Vincent Noot, the illustrator of this wonderfully illustrated book, Find the Cutes Playtime, has answered a few questions about their fun activity book for children.


Reasons to buy this book

The world market is flooded with numerous children’s books, so if we wanted to make it big, we knew our book had to stand out. It had to have that extra something that makes you want it and be impressed with it, so that you recommend it to others personally and in reviews. You need to feel your money was worth it. So why buy “Find the Cutes - Playtime?” Because it’s not a regular children’s book.

- It keeps you and your children entertained for hours.
- The illustrations look beautiful.
- It’s cute and funny.
- It’s educational.

What is “Find the Cutes - Playtime” all about?

Children are creative. They have a huge imagination. In society today, despite all the technology and opportunities, the greatest happiness is often found in the home. Children give families that extra enthusiastic energy. “Find the Cutes - Playtime” is based on that concept. It sparks the imagination, stimulates dialogue without words, educates, entertains, and inspires. 

Who are the Cutes?

The Cutes are a family. Their last name is “Cute” and all the kids’ names start with a “C”: Carissa, Chaz, Cade, Cammy, and Cindy. The story is based on the “second-mom” phenomenon: As the oldest daughter you sometimes get to babysit your younger siblings a lot. That’s how it can work in bigger families. In every illustration I tried to show their innocence and playfulness.

What inspired you as an illustrator?

As a child, I was much intrigued by search books. I spent hours looking for the right characters and objects on every page. But I discovered there weren’t that many different ones out there. Over the years, I developed a unique cartoon style that I was able to use for several companies and assignments. Together with my ideas and the concept of a search book, my wife (then girlfriend) and I came up with a search book and a fun family as the main characters.

How did you come up with each page, and how long did it take to draw them?

Before each page, I brainstorm about as many creative, funny things that could happen. For example, I divided the Birthday Party page into section of balloons, ball pit, presents, etc. Children can be very silly. So I think of what they'd do with a balloon, like rubbing it over their hair, letting it go into the air, binding it to their ears, popping it, etc. Each page took almost 100 hours to sketch, draw, color on the computer, etc. Each person is hand-drawn and colored in Photoshop. My wife, Celestial, did most of the storytelling. The whole book took 1 year to finish. Some drawings are based on real events. Sometimes something funny that happened in our lives, comes back in the drawings. For instance, when I was dating my wife, we both took a bite of the same huge hotdog at the same time. So in the Swimming Pool page, I drew a boy and a girl eating a hotdog at the same time.

Who is the book for?

Children ages 3 and up. Adults could enjoy it too. With 12 pages of things to search for, kids could be entertained for hours. Not only are we going to make a book, but we are planning on making it a tablet game for the ipad, kindle, and other devices. That will be a stretch goal if we make it.

Are you on social media?

We have a website, www.findthecutes.com, which will be the means of selling our book once it’s updated with a payment system. We are also on Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr. Feel free to look us up and follow us.

Are you going to make a sequel?

Yes. We are planning on an entire series of 10 books The next book will be called “Find the Cutes - Festival Fun” and will have fun search pages about Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, but also about the Tomato Festival in Spain, Songkran in Thailand, and Sinterklaas in the Netherlands. It will also have 12 pages and a storyline. We already started working on it.

When will it be available?

Find the Cutes Playtime Kickstarted project

The book is completed, so we now have a kickstarter campaign from March 1st until March 31st. 
This is the link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/92560380/find-the-cutes-playtime?ref=discovery. You can sponsor/back our project in those 30 days and get discounts that way. We are getting the website www.findthecutes.com ready for ordering, so we are in the process of getting the book printed and attaching a payment system to the website. 

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions at findthecutes@gmail.com or personally to my account at vincentnoot@gmail.com.

Illustrator: Vincent Noot

Disclaimer: I did not get the book or discount on putting up this guest post, but I really love the art work and the idea of the book.
I am also sharing most of the illustrations that Vincent Noot supplied to me, because it is really very beautiful! I hope they get to make it into an interactive app for the iPad, Kindle and other devices!

Excited about ZA Books

ZA Books

ZA Books launched yesterday.
It is the eTextbook solution for South African education!

South African school pupils are able to download all their textbooks on an iPad, with much less cost to them, and a lot of flexibility with regards manipulation of taking notes, highlighting and search within a textbook.

It is possible to put this into each child's hand, even in rural South Africa where there already are solutions to power these devices by solar.

Taryn Hyam at iStore, Sandton

Taryn Hyam announced the launch of the ZA Books website, as well as how much inroads Apple has made already with regards education in South Africa. 

80 000 educational apps are available through the iTunes store. App guides were release last year to help parents and students with choosing the right apps. It is divided into the various grades, for primary and secondary school. 

180 schools in South Africa have already implemented iPads, of which 120 are private and government schools. 60 of these schools are iSchoolAfrica sponsored. There are a variety options available of how to implement the iPads: 1 to 1 programmes or mobile labs.

A nice video presentation of the schools that are already using iPads are available on the ZA Books home page: 

Watch the South African iPad in Education video

I love how teachers are responding: The children "brighten up!" (Ndlelenhle Primary School) or that "Nobody wants to miss an iPad class." It is "engaged learning!"

The observations that are forthcoming from the use of iPads: engagement, motivation, discipline, differentiation, reward and re-mediation are significantly higher!

It "allows the teachers to feel like rock stars!"

The global trends are the same, where the digital solution has become a simple choice!

The results are:

Increased interest in reading;

Cost saving;

Homework completion up;

Accessibly for special needs;

Personalised learning;

No more heavy backpacks!

Linda de Klerk
ZA Books

Linda de Klerk gave more clarification on ZA Books and how it is being implemented. 

ZA Books includes CAPS aligned titles, as well as normal reading titles. Teacher's manuals, handbooks and workbooks are available. 

It is already available in 6 languages, and 33 subjects are launched, with 600 titles available. More are being made available on a daily basis!

I checked: There are quite a number of Afrikaans books available already!

Schools can start registering at ZA Books to get a volume licence, and purchasing are done on the website. Individuals can also register.

The ZA Books app is available to download for free.

There is going to be two phases of implementation: Phase 1: school licensing; and Phase 2: individual purchasing.

The pricing is a minimum of 25% cheaper than the physical printed title!

ISchoolAfrica addresses schools in more rural environments by way of corporate sponsorships.

There are tailored solutions for each school.

I also enquired about how I can get my child's schools to adopt this type of learning. 

I was introduced  to Michelle Lissoos of Think Ahead Education Solutions. They help with talking to the principals, the selection of the right solutions for the school, the training of the teachers and implementation.

They have implemented these programmes into Afrikaans schools as well!

I am so excited about this! I will be the parent this year who will go and pester talk to the principals of my child's pre-primary and primary schools. If not this year, then the following year!

I will keep you updated, and on how easy this process is!

Do your children use iPads at school, and what are your thoughts about it?

Related posts:

Apple in Education

iPads for children #iStoreMomsandKids