kid-friendly learning.. anybody?

So yesterday I was grrr-ing over where she got the idea for  “ب سے بھوت” (buh for bhoot). Here’s the story: This thing for making a conscious effort at teaching Urdu to Mahnoor has been close to my heart ever since we moved away from Pakistan. I knew I would have to do it myself given that schools will not be offering Urdu as a subject.

I went around collecting Urdu story books, looking for websites educational programs, games and other study aids.. I found some awesome stuff thanks to BookGroup but this particular interactive Urdu Qaida CD leaves me so maaad at them!

Gorgeous colorful graphics, amazing sounds, well thought storyboard and SO much effort that went into putting it all together is all so evident but if only they actually had brainstormed some on the learning aspect too! sigh.. the entire Quaida is riddled with unnecessary “scary” sutff.. right from ghots to witches and ogres and dancing skeletons.. sigh..  bay say bhoot, chay say churail, daal sey deyo, dhaal se dhaancha, you name it! It is only after Mahnoor started on this quaida that her series of nightmares and scary dreams began.. and they are here to stay!

A little digression but this goes entirely against the phonetic way of putting words together too!

a “bh” sound is distinctly different from a “buh” sound. so essentially we can never have boot, phool, dhancha etc begining with ب پ or ڈ.

oh well we need a new digital urdu quaida… we are working on it and guesswhat, it will be one kick-ass compilation of colorful graphics, fun sounds and all the right kid-friendly stuff.