Daily Read with Your Kids!

Last night, after designing the Planet Storybook site, I decided to record a video of my 4 year old, Ari reading as a test of videos for the website. She was very excited to do this and did a great job!

She wanted to do it again during our reading hour today and I am thinking of making this a daily ritual during our reading hour.

Through this experiment, I found this is a great way to encourage her to read out-loud because normally she wants me to read to her and she would just listen. 

In our regular routine, as a family read about 5-6 stories a day, and get 10 new books from the library a week.

I love reading and bonding with her during this time and adding this 'read-out-loud' filming where she can share with other kids really motivates her to get even better at it. I also like the fact that I get to document her  reading development skills. I encourage all parents to try this with their kids and then they can watch back on themselves.

Here is the first video of her reading:

A Very Hungry Caterpillar - Storybook read by Ari

You can check out the Planet Storybook youtube.com channel at: http://www.youtube.com/planetstorybook where I will be adding reading content of books and stories for kids of all ages.

I would love for other mom's to send me videos of their kids reading and I will definitely feature them. Please mail me them to: planetstorybook@gmail.com

Until next time, happy reading & parenting!

-s-

4 years later... we finalized our web design!

Wow, it's been almost 4 years since our last post. It took us a very long time to finally decide on what we want our website to look like.  This is version #217, and we think it's pretty good. What do you think? 

We hope to launch the site in 2013... but definitely before 2017!

All I can say is that you can't argue with perfection!

Arianna is now almost 5 years old and is reading on her own. She also has a little brother Draven, and 2 new cousins in our family who also love books!

The new goal now is to launch PlanetStoryBook.com before she graduates high-school.

Until next time, keep moving forward...

-s-

Hello World!

Hey everybody, Scott here, the other half of planetstorybook.com. I've been hard at work developing the site architecture, and I can't say how excited I am about this, I think this is going to be a really special site, and I'll be giving you updates on how the site development is coming along.

I'm happy to say phase 1 is finally complete! What is phase 1 you ask? Well the development of a Flash-based dynamic storybook system! Version 1.0 of the storybook entry system and the storybook display system are complete. The database structure and fuctinonality is in place, and we now have the ability for users to share storybooks with friends.

Right now, I'm working on adding the ability to upload photos directly from the storybook entry system and preview your storybooks there. I'm also adding the ability to have greater control over layout options. In addition, I'm also bugproofing the existing architecture. That shouldn't take too long, then I'll add the ability to search for and edit existing stories.

Development has also started on character art as well. I can't wait until that's complete and we can start integrating the characters into the site!

That's it for now. Back to work!
Scott

Color Happy - Happy 1st Birthday Arianna!

We are now well into Spring of 2009 and wow does time every past by fast! Ari is now 1 years old and is as smart and beautiful as ever. I couldn't be any more prouder! For her birthday I wanted to do something special so I illustrated a coloring book for her.

Click here to download the coloring book for free. [http://www.planetstorybook.com/colorhappy.pdf]

I am also really thinking about getting print sponsors to mass produce this book so that I can donate it to Children's Hospitals! It always feels nice to give back.

The start of something great

So many ideas and fun things being developed... and PlanetStoryBook.com is well in the works. We are projecting a soft launch Summer of 2009 and we are very excited!

The idea started one sleepless night when my friend Scott and I were looking for fairytales to read online. I was around 5 months pregnant and definately had baby on the brain. Being a tech-geek and being a founder of a web development company, I use the web alot for resources and information. The more that I googled and searched for bedtime stories and fairytales, the more I realized how few quality resources there were for this area. When I did find a site with some great stories, the usability would be unfriendly, the layout was unpleasing and the options to print or search would at most likely be non-existant. The sites which were current and which had kid friendly esthetics, would be heavily branded with marketing and advertisments. I hate being flooded with online ads!

At that point I made a decision. I would build a website with my baby in mind. A kid-friendly website for kids and parents - a service which would promote literacy, be community based, be large enough so that there was something for everyone and the content, stories & games would all be FREE!

So the idea was born and now we are working on Version 1 of PlanetStoryBook.com

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Project timeline and growth...

Stage 1 of the website planetstorybook.com which will include free online stories to read, literacy games and maybe an affiliate bookstore with Amazon.com. Also launching at this time will be ColorHappy, a cartoon creation site which allows visitors to create fun cartoon people or creatures. The purpose of these 2 websites is to promote literacy and art.

Stage 2 will be an upgrade of the websites to include member profiles, story creation area, auto-bookmarks, a link between the 2 websites planetstorybook.com and ColorHappy (kids can write and illustrate their own stories), introductions to the resident stars of the Planet StoryBook world and more.

Stage 3 and beyond will be the integration of star writer points system, story rating system, writing contests, publishing options, advanced search features, story templates & writing help, Planet StoryBook character guide assistance, other language options, online community messaging board and live interative games.

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Currently we are in the developing and brainstorming part. I guess you can say the fun part before all the work begins! The idea has grown organically in all directions and we are getting lots of positive feedback from people with or without kids. We have also done some secondary market research and it seems there is always a demand for kid-friendly content online and offline. We have also looked at such ideas as merchandise, custom storybooks, live TV show, children's theatre, kids music, school tour, writing contests, etc.

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My baby today is 7 months old and she is has been more than a blessing. Everyday she learns something new and everyday I am inspired just being a part of her world. My hope is that I can always find things that we can do together as she grows so that we will always be able to bond the way we do now. She grows so fast and it seems I can't hold on to her long enough.

My goal for planetstorybook.com, first and foremost, will always be to create a resource which will create together-time for me and my baby. I want to be able to explore and grow with her. I want to nurture her imagination.

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Logo Mock Up - Version 1