A couple of days ago, Klara The Cow, Chuck The Chook and I had the honour to visit the Ronald McDonald House in Hong Kong. We took along some samples of our new Klara The Cow colouring and activity book which is both in English and Chinese. It was so rewarding to see that the Chinese children were kept busy and loved doing the activities in both languages, whilst colouring and drawing the characters from our Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow book. It was interesting to see how young children from other cultures can colour and work with our Koolamundo activities in multiple languages. The cool thing about colouring is that all children are naturals. Most children colour before they start learning to write. There are a lot of learning benefits that can be realized from colouring and activity books. They help with your child’s motor skills, concentration, spatial awareness, and interpretation of different colours which highlights their creativity. Additional benefits include hand eye coordination skills, confidence building and increased self-esteem. Each year Koolamundo will publish a new colouring and activity book featuring our Koolamundo characters. Our first Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow colouring and activity book will be highlighting Klara The Cow and her friends. Her fun colouring and activity book will have colouring pages, mazes, activities, dot-to-dot, drawing pages, stickers, and more. Thank you Koolamundo family for all the wonderful birthday messages. The Koolamundo troop had lots of fun and the cake was delicious. Our Klara The Cow Colouring and Activities book will be published by November. All so exciting! #itsakoolworld
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Puppetry has been around for many hundreds of years. Supposedly, it originally started in Indian with stick puppets. We now have the privilege of experiencing many fabulous forms of puppetry. Hand, string, shadow, rod, marionette and the list goes on. Puppets are fun and entertaining for children and families. We use them at Koolamundo to make our stories and songs come to life. Our puppets love to sing, dance and get involved with everyone around them. We are excited that Klara will have her own hand puppet this year. This will be a great way for your little cuties to read their “Klara The Cow Who Knows How To Bow,” book and also to sing along to the Klara The Cow song. Working with a puppet can be a useful tool. It is a wonderful way to help support your child’s progress in reading, listening and vocabulary development. Also, a fun way to stimulate the imagination. Can you imagine a puppet hanging out at a rabbit cafe? Our happy Koolamundo family love being creative with all the book characters. And we do this with our assortment of puppets. Wherever in the world we may be. Come and have fun with us in the Koolamundo world. #itsakoolworld
Our third friendship book is about a chook that struggles in his own environment with his family and friends because he is so different. He is kicked out of his home and is ashamed to be around other animals. Chuck has a very unique talent, but is not accepted as he is not like the other chooks. He is very sad and unhappy. Then he meets Klara, she gives him the strength, and shows Chuck that we are all different and special. That it is very important to believe in ourselves. Chuck realises that he does have special abilities, which help Klara’s farming community. He does a brave deed and gets the highest award from the Mayor of the town. Finally Chuck is loved and accepted by Klara’s special friends and family. He finally found a new home. Chuck Named Chook Has Amazing Luck is free on Amazon Kindle from July 7th to July 11th. You can go to Amazon and get it free on Kindle now!
Alook and I adventured to a cool place in China, called Chengdu. This is where we had the opportunity to hang out with our Panda bear friends. Did you know that the Giant Panda’s scientific name is Ailuropodine melanoleuca, which means “black and white footed bear. And the Red Panda is Ailurus fulgens, which means red shining cat. Luna loved the Red Panda. s Pandas are black and white bears, that live in thick bamboo forests in central China. Bamboo is their main source of food. They eat all the baboo except for the root. These amazing animals are huge eaters, they are known to eat for many hours. Eating up to 10 or more kilograms of bamboo per day. Did you know that Red Panda’s are a relative of the Giant Panda and also the raccoon, that is why they have a ringed tail. Because of their uniqueness they have their own family, the Ailuridae. They also eat bamboo but prefer the young shoots. Red Panda’s also eat insects and fruit. How do you think both Panda’s strip bamboo? They have an extended wrist bone that helps them to remove the outer woody skin of this hard grass. Wow that is so cool right? This Red Panda decided to hang out with us on our walk around the Panda reserve. What a magic time we had with our Panda friends. Thank you for sharing these special memories with us. Don't forget to join us on our next Koolamundo adventure. #itsakoolworld
On our Kool Facts fun trip, Alook and Klara visited a fudge kitchen in the middle of Windsor next to the famous Windsor castle, which is supposedly the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world. They got to meet a very cool fudge maker that loves to wear different hats. He specially wore his Panda bear hat for us! Did you know that fudge originates from America? At the Fudge Kitchen they use whipping cream instead of butter. Klara is very happy about this, as she is a dairy cow and loves cream. :D Once the fudge mixture is heated and blended together it is then put on a cold marble slab. Once the fudge cools down it starts to thicken. And our cool panda friend creates an amazing long log of delicious fudge ready for us all to eat. But he has to cut it first into large slices. So yummy. Klara loves her new friend and gave him a thank you cuddle for doing such a great job. Alook found a pair of cool sun glasses and Klara got another cuddle this time from a pirate, wow! Our Koolamundo family had a fun time. Thank you to Matt and the charming Fudge Kitchen hospitality. If you are in the Windsor area, please go and try a slice of fudge at the Fudge Kitchen. Our Kool Facts video will be out soon. #itsakoolworld
Meet our new addition to the Koolamundo family. Alook the puppet! We are so excited to add this character to our puppet collection. Lynn did an amazing job of making him come to life with his funny eyes and goofy personality. Thank you my amazing creative friend. Koolamundo had their first musical workshop in Henley, which featured our two puppets, Klara The Cow and Alook. We had a great time reading, singing, dancing and playing different musical instruments with our young audience. Fun was had by all. Koolamundo is an exciting, magical, musical experience. With fun and friendly puppets engaging us throughout, my daughter and I found ourselves prancing, singing and doing the limbo amongst the fun games. Kimberley's lovely stories (fabulously read) allowed our imaginations to run as wild as they wanted whilst we settled down to listen in between the musical madness not to mention whilst it was going on sometimes! The fun seemed endless and with our goodie bag in hand we happily headed home feeling light as feathers! Thank you all at koolamundo for a magical adventure we won't forget! Looking forward to the next one. (Thank you so much Lucy for your lovely testimonial) We are so excited to bring our Koolamundo family and adventures to you all. Keep a look out for Klara. As she will be visiting her first fudge experience soon. Have to make sure Alook behaves himself. :D #itsakoolworld
Two years ago, I wrote a poem about a calf that turned into an illustrated book about Klara The Cow Who knows How To Bow. Little did I know that she would be the beginning of our friendship series for toddlers and young readers. Klara, now has a song, a read along video, dress up app, is in an animated Christmas music video and she now has her own puppet. We recently unveiled Klara’s puppet. My friend Linda did a great job of designing her and she comes with her own designer cow bag. I had so much fun sharing this journey with Linda through her photographs and her amazing creativity. The cool thing is Klara can also bow on one knee when she entertains the children. Yeah, here is the finished product. This year Klara will also have her own key rings and a backpack. Please stay tuned for Klara's adventure in Windsor and also look out for the next upcoming friendship book as she will be with her new friend Chuck The Chook.
We are proud to announce that we are starting with our new Koolamundo musical workshops. Where you will get a chance to meet Klara the cow, Alook and his fun friends. They will be sharing their wonderful adventures through stories, music, singing and dance. Our Koolamundo team will be holding these live events several times a year both in the UK and Hong Kong with puppets, books, songs and videos. Each workshop will have its own uniqueness. If you are in the Henley on Thames area, please come and join us on the 27th April 2017. This will give you an opportunity to meet Klara the puppet and have some fun learning the bowing dance. Her friendship story will be read by the author Kimberley Kleczka. Alook will also share his newly published book, Luna & Alook’s Magical Music Book. So put on your dancing shoes and join the Koolamundo gang for some entertainment and a whoopee time. You will find more details on the Koolamundo.com website for this fun event. Please visit our events page, http://www.koolamundo.com/events.html #itsakoolworld Music is an important part of the Koolamundo world. Our next Luna and Alook's book is about a magical picturesque town that our two feathered friends discover whilst on their travel adventure. You will get to meet the likes of Wispy, who is an old wise tree and several different characters who have amazing music talent. Luna and Alook’s Magical Music Book will be coming out in February. We will also be working on a song for the book and the story will be in other languages. So if you would like to see a goat beating on a drum or a camel playing a gimbri you have come to the right place. Come and join us on another Koolamundo adventure.
Happy Holidays dear friends and families around the world. Yes, it is that wonderful time of the year where we get to enjoy all the yummy treats and our own delicious traditional holiday specialities. Not to forget to pull the Christmas crackers! The Koolamundo family would like to share these special moments with you in their animated Koolamundo Christmas song. Here are a couple of verses for you all to get into the festive mood and have a sing-along with the music video below. :D A special time for young and old, Festive trees with flecks of gold, Hope and spirits are a lift, Time for love, family and gifts. Christmas bells ring and tinkle, Lights brightly shine and twinkle, Baby Jesus in the manger scene, Stealing a kiss under mistletoe green. Chorus So sing along in the Koolamundo jingle, Have fun with Alook and old Kris Kringle. As they joyfully take to the sky, Oh, such a great sight Oh my oh my oh my. Apoorva did the animation and Johanna sang the Christmas song both in English and German. These two wonderful ladies are remarkable and I am honoured that they are part of the Koolamundo family. We have had a lot of fun with this cool project and look forward to doing more next year. Our thoughts and love are with you all during this magical time. Enjoy your special memories with each other and have a fantastic New Years. May all your dreams come true for 2017.
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AuthorKimberley grew-up as a third culture kid; born in the UK, and then living in Africa, America, New Zealand, several European countries and currently residing in Hong Kong. She is on a journey to educate and entertain our children and youth about the Kool world we live in through her books, audio books, sing-a-long books, videos and fun puppets. Please join her on this edutainment adventure! Archives
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