Hi there,
The company of theatre artists I work with at the Smithsonian,
Creative Tools for Teaching, has developed e-books of all of our plays. Additionally, we have filmed versions of our performances and recordings of our songs. All these resources, and several more, are available on our website:
https://creativetools.si.edu
These performances were designed as interactive Learning Plays, so are ideally consumed live. However, in an effort to support our teachers (in DCPS <3 ) in between our visits to the schools, we filmed and shared our content digitally as well.
I'd like to invite as many early childhood educators and caretakers as possible to take advantage of this content by engaging with young learners around what's happening on screen. Pause the video so that you can field their responses to questions in the story, ask them what they think will happen next, etc.
Please share with anyone you think could benefit from our work. And I'd love to hear any feedback (compliments and criticisms alike!) from folks willing to give it.
Play on!
Christine
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Christine Alexander
Smithsonian Associates
Takoma Park MD
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-04-2020 11:22 PM
From: Sharon Schwartz
Subject: Digital Books
We are an early childhood center located in New York and the teachers only had one day to prepare before school was closed. Teachers never imagined we would be closed for months and left many books and materials in school. Now that reality has set in, the teachers have found that one of the few ways to successfully connect with their young charges is through reading books to them via Zoom or as videos. However, the teachers who do not have young children of their own at home have a very limited supply of children's books at their disposal. The public libraries are shut and their digital collections of picture books are sparse. We have been looking for free digitized classic picture books- the ones that the children are familiar with and know and love. So far, we have not found too many. Most of the digital books out there are new and unfamiliar. Some of them are very good, but right now the children need their old favorites read to them by their beloved teachers. Does anyone know of a source for free digitized old favorites?
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Sharon Schwartz
NY
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