Parenthood is a wonderful phase in any person’s life, but with the responsibility it brings, it can at the same time be quite confusing and worrying as well. New parents often find themselves wondering with concern whether they’re being responsible providers for their little ones. Chiefly speaking a child needs three things for holistic development – good nutrition, doting parents and proper education.

Thanks to increasing research and information on the subject, more and more young parents are becoming aware of the need for holistic education for their child, especially in his or her formative years. Childhood education needs to be carefully crafted as concluded by numerous studies conducted over the past that have shown that the quality of education in the formative years determines to a great degree the development of a child’s cognitive abilities.

An added concern is the fact that the competition out there is quit tough and only increasing, so the very best way in which you can help your child would be developing in him or her a strong thirst for education and learning as early as possible. Yet, while education is important, parents struggle with the question of how to teach little kids with their short attention spans and mischievous frolics.

Making kids interested in learning can be a frustrating and tough job and most parents will attest to this fact. The challenge is in making education fun in order to hold your little one’s attention and also to get them genuinely interested in learning. In other words, your child should receive ‘edutainment’- a mix of equal parts education and entertainment. This is exactly what we provide to kids who want to get to know Jeb, the Educharacter.

Little kids learn in many different ways, and one of the very first is through touch. Poking  things, holding them – feeling their shapes. Flat, smooth books, round sippy cups, pointed ice cream cones, sturdy angled blocks … Shapes help define their world, giving it form and texture. And what better way is there of learning new shapes and colors and the names and functions of these fascinating forms than side-by-side with your best friend?

JEB’s aim is to give kids a basic foundation in color, shapes and spatial relationships in a casual, energetic manner, while using the differences between shapes to gently reinforce the ideals of unity and acceptance through laughter, song and exploration. Like the late, beloved Mr. Rogers, JEB’s presentation is outward-directed, involving the kids and teaching about their world by welcoming them into his.

While your child absolutely depends upon you and needs your love and nurturing care, his or her education is best handled with assistance from professionals trained and experienced in conducting education programs for kids. At Jebcoolkids Entertainment it is our passion to help fascinate kids with education, a gift they will cherish for life. We would love to have the opportunity to help your little darlings take their first steps in the field of fun filled education and to infuse them with an enthusiasm for their future education.

Hey everyone! I’m Jeb the Giraffe, and I just moved to Geonopolis. It’s a silly place full of animals of every kind, from bulls and bears to elephants and porcupines. There’s a neighborhood made entirely of cones, another of squares and lines, one that’s soft and fluffy and Cylinderville, full of shops and stores; that’s mine.

Geonopolis is such a neat place, but it’s hard to find playmates. The other animals aren’t very nice. After school I run around to see if I can find a friend, but everyone just laughs at me.

”A short giraffe? “ They say (I’m not very tall.)

“An animal with four eyes? “ They say, because my glasses make my eyes look so big.

“Jeb has chicken pocks! Look at those weird shapes and colors in your coat!” They say, because I’m a different color than other giraffes, and my coat is full of shapes.

Sometimes, the other animals make me want to cry. But I never cry in front of them. I always wait until I get home, and I’m alone in my room.

There are so many things to do in Geonopolis, but no one wants to do them with me. Jeremy and Jeana, my older brother and sister find new friends every day, and all the other giraffes even save them seats at the movies and swings at the park.

Maybe Jeremy will let me play with him in the park today.

“Hi Jeremy,” I say to my brother.

But, he is busy running around with his friends, and doesn’t hear me. They are trying to get the ball in the net. It looks easy.

“Hey Jeremy, can I play too?” I yell really loud so he’ll hear me.

“Jeb, go home! You’re too little,” Jeremy yells back.

Then, I see Jeana playing with her friends on the other side of the park. So, I walk up to her.

“Jeana, can I play too?”

“Hahaha, Jeb go away please! Can’t you see I’m busy? Shoo! Go home and play with Mom,” Jeana says.

They make me so sad. I just want someone to play with. Maybe, mom can make me feel better. When I get home, mom is in the garden.

“Hi Mom, Can I talk to you?”

“Hi Jeb. I’m a little busy right now, sweetie. What’s wrong?” mom says.

“I don’t have any friends to play with. And even Jeremy and Jeana won’t let me play with them.”

“Well honey, they are a lot older than you. They want to do big kid things. Don’t worry Jebby, you’ll find friends. Just give it time.” She says.

“Do you want to play Leafy Land or Rescue Ladder with me?”

“Oh honey, Mommy’s busy right now. I have to finish gardening, and then make dinner for everyone. Maybe after dinner?” Mom rubs her nose on mine. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”
I go in the house and dad is sitting in his office on the phone. I know he’s busy too, so I just go upstairs to my room and cry.

“Why don’t I have any friends? I hate Geonopolis! If only I could play with my friends from all over the world here. Maybe drawing them will make me feel better.”

I take out my travel treasure box. That’s where I keep all my pictures of my friends from around the world, and the rainbow gift pins they gave me. My drawing book is there too. I open it up and see a new box of crayons inside.

“I never keep my crayons in here. Maybe mom did.”

My body starts to feel weird. I look at my legs and see the shapes in my coat moving.

“We’re here, Jeb.”

“What?”

I look around the room. But, I’m all alone. My window is open so it must be the wind. I take out the pictures of Ollie Octogon, Tracy Triangle, Ricky Rectangle, Sam Square, Cemion Circle, David Diamond, Hannah Li Hexagon and Saharee Star, and the pins they gave me. Each pin is a different shape and a different color. I put the pins under the friend that gave it to me.

I take my new crayons, and drawing pad and start to draw Ollie. I hear a whisper.

“The crayon box.”

“What? Jeremy stop playing tricks on me!” My big brother is a pain sometimes. But my coat starts to move again. I pick up the crayon box and read the words on it.

Red, Yellow, Blue, Green,
Orange, Purple, Brown and Black.
Calling all my shapely friends,
Burst your colors from my back!

The pins jump up into the air and make a rainbow. Then they fly around me like a tornado with lots of colors. Each pin spins and spins and then jumps into the shapes on my coat. The black star from Saharee Star jumps into my star spot. The purple circle from Cemion jumps into the circle on my coat. They fit like puzzle pieces. You won’t even believe what happened next. A big rainbow with shapes, and colors and my friends at the end came out of my back!
“Hi Jeb!”

“Hi Ollie Octogon, Tracy Triangle, Ricky Rectangle, Sam Square, Cemion Circle, David Diamond, Hannah Li Hexagon and Saharee Star! I’m so happy to see all of you. I don’t have any friends here.“

“We’ve always been with you Jeb,” Cemion Circle says.

“Ever since you met us. You just never said the magic words.” Tracy Triangle says.

All my great friends run and hug me, and I rub their noses with mine.

Ollie Octogon told me that’s how friends and family say hi where he’s from and it makes me feel better. My friends and I play together for a long time.

“You’re cool Jeb. I think you’ll make lots of friends in Geonopolis,” says Sam Square.

“We should give our group a name,” says Hannah Li Hexagon. “Something cool.”

We make a fort from my bed and then I get an idea.

“I think you guys are cool too. Let’s be the cool kids!” I am so happy now.

“That’s great. But because we live in your coat, we should be Jeb’s cool kids,” says Saharee Star.

Everyone agrees.

“Jeb! It’s dinner time,” my mom yells from downstairs. I feel sad again. I don’t want my friends to leave.

“Don’t worry Jeb, we can play all the time now,” Hannah Li Hexagon says.

“Yeah, we’ll have so much fun.” Ricky Rectangle says.

“But how?” I ask.

“Easy. Just say what’s on your crayon box, and we’ll be here!” says Saharee Star.

“Yeah. Call us. Call Jeb’s cool kids!” say David Diamond and Sam Square.

“Bye!”

One by one, they jump back into my coat.

“Coming mom!” I yell downstairs. I’m so hungry and happy. I can’t wait to see my friends again.

I should tell you about how I met Saharee. What a story! Dad had taken us all to India with him because he was giving a bunch of special talks at universities there. I couldn’t believe how crowded the city streets were! India has so many people, over 1 billion actually. If you write it out, 1 billion is a 1 with 9 zeros after it. Look: 1,000,000,000. Such a big number! Only China has more people. So you can imagine, in a place with that many people, it’s hard to stand out. Unless you’re a family of talking giraffes!

We were all heading over to the university from our hotel when I realized I didn’t have my glasses. I started running back to get them but because I couldn’t see very well I got lost and couldn’t find the hotel, and then I couldn’t find my family. And then suddenly I ran smack into an elephant, knocking a girl off the elephant’s back! She fell into a food stand and got a whole lot of this yellow stuff all over her blue outfit, which then kind of turned an icky greenish kind of color.

When she stood up, I said “I’m so sorry!”

“Ahhhh!” She screamed in my face, “A talking giraffe!”

“Yes, I didn’t mean to knock you off your elephant! I was looking for my family, and not paying attention to where I was going, and left my glasses at the hotel. My name is Jeb the Giraffe,” I said. “Will you be my friend?”

Even though she was covered in curry and talking to me, a giraffe, no one noticed. That’s how crowded India is. “How dare you,” she huffed. “You ruin my clothes, spoil my act and spill my rupees all over the street? Then you have the nerve to try and be my friend? My mother is going to kill me for ruining my expensive clothes!”

I didn’t really understand what she was saying, so I did what I always do, which is ask a lot of questions! “What’s your name? And, what’s his name? And, what’s rupees?” I said, pointing at the elephant, who was busy sucking up spilled food from the ground around the food stand.

The girl looked shocked when she said, kind of dramatically, “I can’t believe you don’t know me. See, I’m up on that billboard over there. I’m famous. My name is Saharee Star and he is Toodalo the elephant. Rupees are money, and my family has many. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to find my rupees, and go home to clean up. Clumsy giraffe.” She turned around to fetch Toodalo, and that’s when I started crying.

“Wahhhh…I’m…sniff…lost…and…sniff…scared and…sniff…can’t find my mommy!”

As it turns out, Saharee Star is the kind of person who just can’t stand to see people cry.

She said, “I’m sorry giraffe…um, Jeb. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Come on, I’ll help you.” She patted me on the back and I tried to hug her, but ended up just knocking her down again, which made my cry even louder, if you can believe that!

Then, at the exact same time, we both happened to see our reflections in a big mirror outside a nearby shop. We couldn’t help but laugh at ourselves. We looked so ridiculous!

Then Saharee said, “ I have an idea how we can get you back with your family.”

“Really, you’ll help me? What should we do?”

“You climb up onto Toodalo’s back and then I’ll climb all the way up to your head and belt out a song. They’ll be sure to see us then!” Saharee was all smiles now, especially at the idea of performing, which she can’t resist.

“Yay! Let’s do it!” I said.

I never tried standing on an elephant’s back before. It was hard, but somehow how I got up there and was able to stay balanced while Saharee Star climbed all the way up my neck and stood on my head. Luckily, she’s not very heavy! Then she just made up a song on the spot and started singing it really loud. It went like this:

Once upon a time in India

Jeb Giraffe got lost

So very many people

And all the streets criss-crossed

He was looking for his family

But instead guess who he met?

India’s star, Ms Saharee

And Toodalo, her pet!

As I looked into the distance, even without my glasses I cold see four giraffes in the crowd, all looking toward us. Everyone around us was clapping and laughing. Saharee’s plan worked!

After we climbed back down to the ground, Saharee handed me a black star mirror pin, saying “Here. You can have this to remember me by. I have to go home to clean up and eat dinner, but I hope we’ll meet again someday! Bye for now!”

I called after her, “Thank you Saharee and Toodalo! I’m so glad I met you both!” And then my family was all around me and everything was okay again.

I have such great memories about meeting each of my special friends. I’m glad I started writing the stories of how I met them in this journal, and I’m glad you’re here to read them! Today I’m going to tell you about how I met Sam Square.

My dad was giving a special talk in Los Angeles he brought the whole family. While he was busy with his talk, we went to Venice Beach to enjoy some sun and fun. I noticed there was what looked like an amazing skate park just next to the beach and I begged my mom to let me check it out. I love the idea of whizzing around on a skateboard or rollerblades, but had never tried it before. Of course, I would need TWO pairs of skates since I have FOUR feet!

I climbed up along one of the outer edges to watch all the cool skaters doing their tricks. The park is pretty amazing, with all kinds of dipsy-doodles to swoosh around in. I was so into watching the skaters I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. The next thing I knew, I had somehow stepped on a skateboard and went right down over the edge into a big bowl-shaped area with lots of skaters zooming around.

I flew down through the center of it, somehow not running into anyone else, up the other side and then came back the same way only backwards! I was screaming like crazy the whole time because I had no idea how to control where I was going. When I came back up to where I started, I made it up over the lip of the bowl and landed with a thud along the edge.

I was just kind of laying there in shock. It was VERY scary but also totally THRILLING. Then I head a voice next to me say, “Dude, that was totally AWSOME. I’ve never seen a giraffe on a skateboard, let alone a giraffe skating BACKWARDS! You’re pretty rad! But next time, ask me first if you want to borrow one of my boards, okay?”

I turned to see a boy with spikey hair giving me two thumbs up. “Actually,” I said, “That was a total accident. I’ve never even been on a skateboard before!”

“Well, then, looks like you’re a natural! Except for the screaming. I was wondering about that.” Then he introduced himself. “I’m Sam Square. Who’re you?”

“I’m Jeb Giraffe,” I said. “But I don’t think I could do that again if I wanted to. And I’m not even sure if I want to or not!”

“Of course you want to,” Sam said. “Nothing beats the thrill of catching a little air on your board! If you want, I can help teach you some basics.”

“Gee, Sam, that’d be swell,” I said. “Let me just go tell my mom so she won’t be worried.”

“Wow, and I thought I was square! Okay, I’ll be here waiting for you, Jeb!”

We had the best time ever hanging out at the skate park with him teaching me how to ride. At the end of the day I still wasn’t very good, but I was starting to get the hang of it. But the best part was making a new friend!

When my dad went to South Africa to give a special talk, we all got to go with him! South Africa is a really cool country to visit. It’s on the very bottom tip of Africa. It was a VERY long flight to get there. The dad’s talk was happening at the Johannesburg Public Library. It’s a very big building, so it must have lots of books. Little kids weren’t allowed in the talk, but my mom said it would be okay to explore the library a little bit on my own if I wanted to. It was closed for renovations, so it was mostly empty.

I wandered around for a while and then found a place where there were huge rooms, like warehouses, with shelves that went from the floor all the way to the ceiling and they just FULL of books. I’ve never seen so many books in all my life! I couldn’t help but say out loud, “Gosh, I wonder how many books there are in here?”

And then a quiet voice nearby said very matter-of-factly, “One million, five hundred thousand.” I whirled around and there was a little African boy with glasses sitting at a small table in the corner surrounded by stacks of books.

“Wow,” I said, “That’s a whole lot of books.”

“And I’m going to read all of them,” he said.

“Really? How many have you read so far?” I asked.

“Seven hundred and thirty-eight,” he answered quietly.

“I can’t believe you’ve read that many books. You must be really smart!” Cemion just shrugged his shoulders as if it wasn’t any big deal. “Hey!” I said, “You were glasses just like me! My name’s Jeb Giraffe. What’s yours?”

“Cemion Circle,” he said. “The library people know how important it is for me to keep reading, so they let me come to the library even when it’s closed. It was built in 1935 and has more than 250,000 members. I especially like the high Gothic windows. They give the whole place a Medieval feel.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It kinda does, doesn’t it? I do like stories about knights in shining armor fighting dragons! Do you?”

“Oh, sure, I guess so,” he said. “I stopped reading stories like that years ago. Now I mostly focus on science and history.”

Just then my older sister Jeanna showed up, saying “Jeb, where the heck have you been? The talk is over and we’ve been looking all over for you! Hey, who’s your cutie-pie little friend?”

Even though Cemion’s skin is very dark, I could tell his face was burning bright red. “His name is Cemion and he’s going to read every single book in this library!” I said.

“Yikes! Good luck with that, smarty-pants,” Jeanna said. Cemion just looked down at his books with his very red face and didn’t say anything. “C’mon, Jeb, we gotta go.” And off went Jeanna to join the rest of the family.

When she was gone, Cemion breathed a sigh of relief. “I never know what to say around girls.”

“Oh, that’s just my sister, Jeanna. Well, I guess I have to go now, but if I come back here tomorrow, will you be here?” I asked.

Cemion replied, “Yes, I’m here almost every day. We could read together!”

“Okay!” I said. “That’ll be great! I’m glad I met you, Cemion.”

“I’m glad I met you too, Jeb. If you come in the morning, I’ll be right here!”

“Sounds like a plan! See you then!” I said, running off to find my family. Wow! A special friend in South Africa! I’m so happy!