I recently had the pleasure of sitting down for tea in my kitchen with the lovely Ayala Homossany, the author/creator of the Enchanted Wonders interactive iBooks for kids.  I loved sitting with her and looking over the book,  seeing all the little details and features on each page. Ayala’s passion as an author, educator and mum is really inspiring. It made me think about my own parenting and how I should slow down a bit more and really sit with my kids to engage them in enquiry and exploration. So often I read a book to my kids (admittedly, often in a hurry to get through it so I can put them to bed or move on to the next thing), and I should try to be better at sitting and reading with them, encouraging questions and discussion.

Enchanted Wonders—Butterfly is designed exactly for this purpose — it is meant for children and parents to explore together.
The activities in the book are aimed to encourage children to question the world around them, explore it and give it their own interpretation. Each of the six activities in the book (draw, role-play, story-telling, sculpturing, drawing, movement and exploring the sense of touch) brings up a series of questions, and each question opens a door in the child’s mind, to another and then another, and all is done through the use of, video, audio, pop-up galleries, and heart capturing illustrations.

Unlike other eBooks and apps where the user interacts mostly with the screen, the Enchanted Wonder book series uses the screen as a springboard to engage the children with the real and physical world around them.  Don’t you love that? So it’s not just like you’re handing an iPad to your kids to ‘babysit’ them. It’s really like an activity book, encouraging children to put the book down and observe their surroundings.

x Courtney