Do Good. Work for Well-being. Raise Funds. Fix what needs fixing...that's what Mira does.
JOIN THE FUN OF CO-CREATING! Join author Anne Brataas to help create the 18 dog characters she needs for Mira's next book, Mira's Big Day of Lake Wonder, to be published in 2019. We will do this in Make-Along workshops, working sheep fleece into felt to explore characters, inside and out!
FUR LAB LIVE!
At left, Anne's mobile Fur Lab table, chairs and materials are set up at a St. Paul fundraising book sale in March 2018 that raised $2,000 to help prevent gun violence in schools. Felt samples the children made hang on the white sheet. They will inspire dog fur patterns of the 18 dog characters in Anne's next book.
In Fur Lab, we design dogs together. We create dog fur colors and patterns by massaging sheep fleece into felt with a few drops of warm water and our hands. Anne and her artists use your felt designs to inspire the illustrations of the dogs -- we co-create an original story and book!
See Tucker make felt in Fur Lab, below.
Read Aloud, Make Along With Mira Mira workshops engage children in personal growth, community building and civic transformation.
It's a lot to ask, we know. That's why we turned to children. Their fearless sense of invention and restless drive to make and experiment is what will change the world for the better.
Mira books, readings and workshops touch family life in many ways. They provide an imaginative and charming read-aloud platform that promotes bonding through books between children and caregivers. They function as an empathy curriculum by modeling what valuing others' perspectives looks like. Mira books also serve as a fundraising tool.
Fundraising With Mira When you buy Mira books at deep discount through our Story Scouts® bulk-buy entrepreneurs' purchasing program, you can sell them your way at PTO suppers, school book fairs, family nights, entrepreneurs' clubs and block parties, at your price. You keep all profits for the causes you identify and fund, while working in multigenerational teams where adults model joyful work, purposeful collaboration and the satisfying life skills required to make change and meet needs in your community...and perhaps, the world.
Through Story Scouts®, children earn badges for reading aloud, creating stories and books, service-learning in classrooms mentoring reading buddies in lower grades, supporting community, taking initiative, executing and implementing all the steps of a fundraising campaign, reaching a goal and acting with integrity to fund whatever they identify as needing help.
In a word: goodness. They enact goodness.
Two Workshops Reunite Creative Hands With Mind Children need to create with their hands to develop fine motor skills and integrate inborn manual and creative intelligences. This integration is all but lost in the 21st century of tap, pinch, scroll.
All our workshops start with reading aloud a Mira book, and progress to one of two enrichments. Early readers are best suited to "Read Aloud and Make Along with Mira," in which they make felt from sheep fleece using only their hands to prepare a Mira-type tea party table setting by making a mug rug. Or a book cozy. Mira is never too sure what things have feelings and what don't. In the third book in the series, Mira's Big Day of Lake Wonder (in production, due out fall 2018) she asks: "Do lakes feel?" Given that mindset, Mira sometimes swaddles her books from the cold with fleecy jackets she felts by paw. We do too.
Older children thrive in our "Read Aloud and Write Along with Mira" workshop. In it, we create the story and the make by hand the physical book in bottom-up books – stories written by children for children, using Mira as inspiration.
Story As Relationship Through Mira workshops, children of all ages – as a class, a youth service-learning project, or family outing – engage in meaningful learning because hearing and reading stories aloud enriches imaginations and deepens relationships. At its heart, a story is a relationship.
In the pictures below, students read aloud to each other and to stuffed animals in a 2016 summer Read Aloud, Make Along With Mira Workshop. The workshops are designed to spark curiosity, engage minds in ideas and wonder, and connect children to their hands' amazing ability to create what their minds imagine: Books of course! Costumes! Characters! Transformative daring!
2022 Sleep Special of Mira Pillow and 1 Book, Mira's Big Day of Wonder $45
$45.00
(Paperback)
Level II Seedlings
Seedlings stories are Level II picture books for preschool-kindergarteners to listen to as read-aloud stories and to begin to read themselves. Add a Mira pillow and let the snuggling begin!
Seedlings stories are Level II picture books for preschool-kindergarteners to listen to as read-aloud stories and to begin to read themselves.
Mira's First Day of Wonder
$15.00
(Board book)
Level I Podkins
Podkins stories are board books to be read aloud to your child from birth to age 2. For optimal brain development, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children not be exposed to screen-based activities for the first two years of life. Read Mira books!
