#NeighborhoodHeroes: Gramma Books, A YouTube channel to help overwhelmed students, teachers, and parents
A YouTube channel has been made by Judith Schliessmann, aka Gramma Books. Schliessmann has been a volunteer in schools from Indio to Palm Springs for 32 years. She said, "Many of the students are learning English and I have found that they learn faster with my humorous approach." So her YouTube channel, Gramma Books, does just that. She said her goal with the channel is to help overwhelmed students, teachers, and parents with fun science videos and reading books for grades up to second grade.
Judith said she goes by the name Gramma Books because she is a grandma and loves books. She said, “I thought well if I had some fun books that I could read, then the parents could turn on the YouTube and let the children watch it then they would learn a lot of English words.” Gramma Books especially hoping to help the kids where English is their second language since they don’t get the same interaction with online classrooms. She said, “What happens in school is the children that don’t speak Spanish are playing with the children who do or are sitting at a table working together and they learn english from each other.”
Gramma Books striving for content that is educational but also entertaining to the kids. She said, "Teachers are too restricted to don't do hats and costumes. Being unpaid allows me to be silly so learning is fun!"
Gramma Books said the reading on her channel is good for kids up to the third grade and are about 5-10 minutes long. But, it’s not only books you can find on Gramma Books YouTube channel. She also is making science educational videos! She said, “I call it science fun and I have a lot of experiments and that’s probably good for boys and girls up to middle school.” These videos are typically 10-15 minutes long. In her science videos, she does experiments that kids can mimic from home. Gramma Books said, “I tell the boys and girls I am going to talk about everything that makes up the universe because the universe is either gas, liquid, or solid, or energy.”
Gramma Books is a scientist herself, but she said she couldn’t do any of this without the help from Mia Alexander who does everything behind the scenes in the technology department. Schliessmann said Mia created the YouTube page for her and does all of the filming and editing. Schliessmann said, “She set it up for me, I have no idea how to do that. She set it up for me and she takes all the filming and she goes home and she edits it and turns it into, I think, a very finished product.” Mia and Schliessmann’s relationship goes back years. Mia is now in college but was actually one of Gramma Books students in the first grade. Schliessmann’s said that Mia hopes to be an editor, “And I think she’s going to make a wonderful film editor someday.”
Schliessmann doesn’t think of herself as a hero. She said, “The first people that are my heroes are the teachers and everybody else that supports them.” She considers all of the teachers and those that help teachers, her heroes.
New Channel 3's Taban Sharifi will have more about Gramma Books an all new Neighborhood Heroes segment today at 5 p.m.
Celebrating #NeighborhoodHeroes
While the coronavirus crisis is keeping us apart, we know the Coachella Valley community is still coming together to help each other. We are looking for those who are lending a hand during this uncertain time. Do you know of any everyday people who are going out of their way to help others? Have you seen someone find creative solutions to the new challenges we all face?
News Channel 3 wants to celebrate these neighborhood heroes. Tell us about them here. Enter HERE or email SHARE@kesq.com. If you see good happening on social media, share it with us, and tag it #neighborhoodheroes for us to see.
We are all in this together. Help us showcase the good that's happening right here in the Coachella Valley.
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