Wow!
This week has been progressing at a feverish pace for us, as I write this blog post our campaign has just gone live on kickstarter.
Recently I have felt that Betsy and I are succeeding at taking the Mother Goose on the Loose brand, message, and program to the next level of early literacy programs. We have encountered many challenges, but so far we have overcome. Over the past couple weeks, things have started to gel nicely although we have a few big projects we are developing simultaneously, they are all proceeding on track. No matter how busy we get we always try to remind ourselves how important it is to occasionally stop (assess) and smell the roses.
Over the past few months we have met some truly extraordinary partners (I won’t name them all yet, that will happen in a separate blog post) who have lent us their talents and knowledge to help make the program and its chances of success even better than they are today. We have been so fortunate and I try never to forget that when I get down because something didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.
Now that the sentimental and thankful part of the post is over I am going to take advantage of this platform I have to share a few of the most noteworthy recent developments at MGOL.
Most recently we have successfully launched our kickstarter campaign! . Our goal is to raise funds to finish testing and to start producing MGOL home kits for librarians, caregivers, and parents. These kits will contain some typical instruments used in Mother Goose on the Loose programs and an indestructible book. Parents and caregivers who use the materials with their children in a home setting will be able to reinforce the concepts that have been introduced in MGOL sessions and modeled by librarians. This kit has the potential to make a tremendous difference in the type and quality of literacy-oriented activities that parents do at home with their young children. The high-quality props and nursery rhyme related activities will help parents talk, sing, read, write and play with their children.
Our KickStarter campaign to support is now LIVE Please check it out, donate, and tell all of your friends about it. You can view it by CLICKING HERE
Converting all of the different estimates, options, and facts into one cohesive campaign was not easy, but it sure was rewarding. We hope that as a result of this campaign we will have enough funding to bring Mother Goose on the Loose into as many homes as possible. This program has the potential to significantly increase the literacy and pre-literacy capabilities lives of children everywhere contributing to even more successful outcomes in life. If you have seen our campaign page yet please check it out and tell all of your friends about it, it is a truly worthy cause and a wonderful product.
In addition to the Kickstarter campaign we have a new beautiful and fantastic WEBSITE! Nuri our web developer/all-around-internet-expert is the best! He took our vision (and many comments) and turned them into something that I am in awe of. For the past few days I have been visiting the website just so I can see those little goose feet walking around the top left corner because I think they are hilarious and cute.
We have a fantastic newsletter (click here to register) that we send out on a monthly basis. This newsletter covers a myriad of topics including: a summary of a recent brain research article in easy to understand language, a nursery rhyme of the month, updates as to recent workshops. It has been a pleasure to hear how many people not only open but actually read the newsletter to stay updated about the world of early literacy.
Another project-in-the-works is the development and initial beta testing our Mother Goose on the Loose Online Construction Kit (OCK). The OCK will be a free cloud based tool that anyone can use for free to make planning early literacy programs a breeze. The OCK will have an approachable, simple, and intuitive interface that will generate scripts for librarians and childcare providers to follow when doing a Mother Goose on the Loose program. These scripts can then be printed as either barebones outlines with just the title of each activity to serve as a reminder, or with many details including lyrics, instructions, and developmental tips. Well-organized databases of nursery rhymes, developmental tips, and books to will planning high quality early literacy activities a breeze.
We are also lining up BETA testers now and will let you know as soon as it is ready for action. If you are interested in being a BETA tester and getting to see the OCK before anyone else does, please sign up here.
Thanks for reading all about our exciting adventures at Mother Goose on the Loose, stay tuned for more updates.
Alon