One day...

"A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?" "A gruffalo! Why, didn't you know?

He has terrible tusks, and terrible claws,
And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws..." 

 

Julia Donaldson, The Gruffalo

While the children were on school holidays we still had a number of them coming to our program, and since there was no homework to be done we had lots of time to read, explore and get creative!  Recently, with the help of my wonderful language teacher Olonbayar, I translated one of my favourite children's books ever into Mongolian: The Gruffalo.  It has fast become a favourite with the children, and I love watching them read it for themselves, squealing in delight at all of those terrible teeth in those terrible jaws, delighting in the crazy favourite foods of this so called "gruffalo" and the cunning of the little mouse who very cleverly gets rid of the forest animals AND the gruffalo so he can enjoy his peace and quiet, and his nut!  I also love hearing them try to pronounce "Gruffalo"- it is very foreign to them and often comes out as "Kruuffalo" J

With a lovely crafty idea in hand, inspired by Charlotte over at Make, Do and Friend, we got to work creating our very own gruffalo portraits!

 

 

 

I love how each one turned out uniquely, capturing a little bit of each individual artist, and the creative license taken and added to each one!

I have a dream to translate my children's "library" and to one day see many of these books published and available in Mongolian language, sold in book shops and readily available for children, families and teachers.  One day... J