So, who’s up for songs and stories this weekend? Many, I’m sure. Let me tell you straight that I’m going to introduce to you a website which offers Urdu songs and stories played on Flash videos generated for that purpose. The website is http://toffeetv.com — a channel which airs stuff for kids only, though elders will also enjoy the ‘transmission’.

The colourfully designed homepage of the site features certain videos in the header; whereas, you can choose categories from the section at the top of the page, which has links such as Songs, Stories, Activities, and Blog. The rest of the homepage is all boxes containing colourful thumbnails of recent videos and songs. What I can see right now (telling you to incite your curiosity) are videos like Rang, Bakri Ki Zidd, Utho Beta!, Aqalmand Bandar and Moti Murghi, among others.

The sections of Songs and Stories, as simple as that, give you a number of stories and nursery rhyme-like songs which “have been located in ragged books” but have been digitised to be shared “with the online world”. That’s why many of you must be familiar with stories like Aaloo Mian, Aaloo Mian!, a song for children.

What is even more interesting in the songs section is that it also gives the lyrics of the songs that are there. Thus, you can learn them with the help of this site and use the same to perform in any function! A big help for those who want to take part in such activities at school.

In the Activities section you can browse all the videos, I’m sure, as they teach you how to do things. You can learn how to make a cube, a ninja star, a paper cup and paper birds. You also get to know how to draw Aaloo Mian, a seagull, and much more.

This is just the summary of all the interesting features ToffeeTV offers to you! Browse it to enjoy the fun yourself. The website has been developed, according to its About section, ‘to promote the Urdu language’. However, it would have been great if the website had also carried some things in regional languages of our country which also need the support of such initiatives.

Moreover, the website will disappoint those who want to download videos — if such options were provided by the website owners, it could have become a more beautiful mosaic for children. — Aamir Raz Soomro