Another passion of mine: Children's Literature and English language learning.

As much as I love beauty, health and wellness, I absolutely love writing, content sharing and the English language, so I've decided to shine a bit of light on that in this latest post.

We all have our favourite childhood books and stories and if you're like me, they bring back memories of taking you off to faraway places on adventures you will never forget. As a child I loved daydreaming and writing my own little stories and poems and always wanted to take a writing course.

Here are some of my favourite childhood reads in no particular order:

• The Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
• The Big Book of Gnomes - Rien Poortvliet and Wil Huygen
• Tintin books - Herge`
• The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
• The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgson Burnett
• Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maude Montgomery
• The complete adventures of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
• Grimm's Fairytales - Jacob Grimm
• The Complete Fairytales - Hans Christian Andersen

If you're looking for new ideas, here's a long comprehensive list of children's books.

I loved reading to my daughter as a baby and child and to this day she absolutely loves books and reading as an adult. We also borrowed the maximum amount of books from the library and her bookshelves were overflowing with classics we found at second hand stores. A magical world of adventures and characters! A child's word knowledge, interests and writing expands exponentially with reading. If you have children or grandchildren, you'll know how special that time is together and how excited they can get to pick out their favourite stories!

Create a reading corner, read to them at night, take books with on a road trip, airplane, holiday, restaurant, visiting family...their love of books and reading will grow if they are given every opportunity to read or at least start with picture books plus a great way to spend time together with you, grandparents, their siblings or friends.

In the late 1990's I took an intense two year Writing for Children and Teenagers Literature diploma through The Institute of Children's Literature It was all by correspondence through the mail and my entire course and all assignments were typed up on my Brother electronic typewriter back then as there was no website to access. At the time I was mostly at home as my daughter was very young and I only worked part-time. 

Getting big envelopes with assignments and grades through the mail was a thrill and held a different vibe to going online and simply finding your schooling there. Not only did this two year journey fill me with utter enjoyment and pride of filling a binder full of stories, but it polished my writing skills and techniques and later would help me to write better in any office position I worked.

I then also went on to study teaching English as a foreign language and that immersed me into all the intricacies of the language. I then created a comprehensive English as a Foreign language video course. which took me over a year to write and around another year to have edited with music, text, photos and beautifully presented and finished. I wanted to offer something for students, parents and teachers to be able to watch and follow along with and have a big printable manual too.

This course was also created for young children to understand the basics of English and the world around them ie seasons, colours, shapes, the alphabet and everyday life. Bold bright pictures and a good basic understanding of English words, grammar and talking, reading and writing in English.

I also recently compiled a value package of 11 Different eBooks for young children. Printable sheets and activities for preschoolers to grade 4 who are learning math, spelling, colours, shapes, time, months, seasons, letters, numbers and memory skills. Great for teachers and parents! All round basic learning, creativity, fun and enjoyment! Print off all the workbooks and place them in a binder. Colouring-in, fill in the blanks, memory games and more! I really enjoyed putting all those components in one package!

So as you can see, I find these learning concepts pretty exciting! Little minds love to explore and are eager to learn if given the opportunity. I hope your children love reading as much as I did as a child and that their bookshelf is full of exciting adventures, fairytales and interesting places and characters!

Happy reading! Until next time.

Susan

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