Sunday, December 26, 2010

Enjoy Holiday Cooking with your Kids

Looking for a tasty appetizer to make for the holiday season? A great crowd pleaser is deviled eggs. Below is an easy to follow recipe. Be sure to ask your parents for help. To be safe, ask your parents to boil the eggs first. Once the eggs have cooled get cracking!

Ingredients:
12 hard-cooked eggs 
1/3 cup mayonnaise 
2 tablespoons finely shredded Cheddar cheese 
2 tablespoons honey mustard 
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions:
Hard boil, shell and rinse your eggs.
Slice eggs in half.
Carefully remove the yolks and place in a large mixing bowl.
Place egg whites on a platter.
Mash egg yolks with a fork.
Blend in mayonnaise, crumbled bacon, cheese, honey mustard and pepper.
Place a spoon full of yolk mixture into each egg white.
Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Sprinkle paprika on top of eggs before serving.

Adapted from http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/christmas/kids-recipes/honey-deviled-eggs.html.
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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Holiday Fun at Fujimini Island

All the fun is around the corner. The holidays are here at last. One of the best parts about the holidays is lots and lots of tummy pleasing food. Cookies are a great treat and probably the best part of the cookie is the frosting. Not old enough to bake? Don’t worry. Here is a great way to indulge in frosting heaven with minimal preparation but lots of creativity.

Gather together at least three frosting colors. Use the frosting in the tubes to make decorating easy. Get some graham crackers and start drawing in frosting. Any holiday wish or symbol is perfect for your graham cracker cookies. You can even individualize each graham cracker by writing a person’s name on it. Don’t forget about sprinkles or sugar crystals. A light dusting makes your cookies glow like the wings of angels. Place the finished graham crackers on a fancy plate and serve them up with hot cocoa or warm apple cider.

For more fun, check out Fujimini Island!
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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Lesson Plan: Learning Plot, using Sushi!

The Fujimini Island Adventure Series provides fun, vibrant, Asian inspired stories for kids in pre-school up second grade.

Here is a lesson plan idea for teachers or parents for grades K-1. This lesson plan focuses on plot.
Supplies: The book Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi by Eileen Wacker (order here), crayons, ruler, pencils

Objective: Learn about plot
  1. Read Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi to your child or students.
  2. Discuss plot with your child or students. Plot describes what happens in a story or the events that place in sequence.
  3. Discuss the plot of Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi with your child and students. Prompt them by saying, “And then what happened?”
  4. On a board place events on a chart with the labels – beginning, middle and end.
  5. Have your child or students copy the plot diagram onto a sheet of paper using crayons, pencils and a ruler. 
To learn more about the Fujimini Adventure Series books, click here.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Lesson Plan for Your Children or Students

The Fujimini Island Adventure Series provides fun, vibrant, Asian inspired stories for kids in pre-school up second grade.

Here is a lesson plan idea for teachers or parents for grades K-1. This lesson plan focuses on character.

Supplies: The book Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi by Eileen Wacker (order here), art supplies, character map

Objective: Learn about character traits

  1. Read Red Penguin and the Missing Sushi to your child or students.
  2. Discuss character traits with your child or students. Character traits are unique attributes of a person. When we describe a person or thing we usually describe its attributes. 
  3. Tell your child or student that “character traits is not what a person looks like but acts like, character traits describe what is inside”. 
  4. Here is a list of words that describe character traits - some of these words are too sophisticated for K-1 but many are understandable and some are perfect challenge words for kids.
  5. Draw on a piece of paper or chalk board a character map. 
  6. Place Red Penguin in the middle of the map. 
  7. Draw extensions and write various traits that Red Penguin has on the extensions. 
  8. Do this activity with your child or students.
  9. Have your child or students do an art piece – a character picture - featuring Red Penguin. 
  10. Encourage your child to incorporate Red Penguin’s traits in the art piece.
To learn more about Fujimini Island and the other books in the Fujimini Adventure Series, click here

Friday, December 3, 2010

Find and fill your mind with NEW WORDS :)

Word searches are hypnotic little hunts that expand a child’s vocabulary, word fluency and spelling ability. Very young children are usually given Dolch Sight word searches. Sight words are frequently used words in oral and written English.

Sight words are the glue for sentences.
Words such as – and, all, away, go, help, it, is – are all sight words. They are critical to sentence building.

Many kids pick up on sight words quickly. Age appropriate books are filled with sight words. But age appropriate books also have many new words. Providing word searches for these ‘new’ words can turn a competent young reader into a sophisticated young reader.
Fujimini Island provides a word search on their website. Let your child hunt for words and watch their vocabulary grow quick and strong.
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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Have Fun! Play Games!

ONCEKids has several games that provide an opportunity for readers of the Fujimini Island Adventure Series to deepen their experience and, for those who have yet to read the books, explore the world of Fujimini Island.  

Fujimini Island has a word search, coloring sheets and a build your own sushi game.

For the ‘build your own sushi’ game kids learn about food, a predominant cultural motif, they expand their vocabulary and improve hand and eye coordination. They also get to be creative. Plus, the game is fun and a fun game ensures the greatest learning.

Go to Fujimini Island to play games and build your own sushi.