|
|
Tuesday, August 25
Meet Freddie, the Katie & Kimble Blog's Little Talking Host!
by
Linda Thieman
on Tue 25 Aug 2009 12:33 PM CDT
Meet Freddie, the Katie & Kimble Blog's Little Talking Host!
 This
is Freddie! She's the talking host of the Katie & Kimble Blog.
If you turn on your speakers and click on her picture over on the left
sidebar, you can hear her recite the Kimble, Kimble Chant. (You can
find the words to the Kimble, Kimble Chant on the right sidebar of the
blog.)
If you place your cursor over Freddie's picture in the left sidebar,
she will follow it with her eyes. Also, you can click on her one time
and she will repeat her welcome. If you'd like to hear it more
than twice, you can close your browser for a little bit and come back
to it later. She will then speak again!
I named our new host Freddie
because there are two fictional characters I like who are named Freddy.
I am a big fan of the late author Georgette Heyer, and she wrote both Cotillion and Frederica, my two favorites, and both books have a very likable character named Freddy!
Fun Katie & Kimble Hint: On the sidebars, click on the yellow stripes for a little surprise or two!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
Monday, August 24
Kids, You Can Help Save the World Here! (Online Learning Games at the Katie & Kimble Blog, for ages 7-10)
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 24 Aug 2009 08:00 AM CDT
Kids, You Can Help Save the World Here!
 If you've read Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story, you know that Katie is the kind of girl who likes to HELP people and animals (um, and ghosts!). Now, here are three ways that YOU can help people and animals, too.
It's fun and it's important.
And you can learn great things at the same time! I've added all three
to the Katie & Kimble Activity Corner on the right sidebar of this
blog. That section of the sidebar is called Save the World.
 1) A 12-year-old girl named Mimi Ausland from Oregon started a website called FreeKibble.com.
Kibble means pieces of dog or cat food. Every day, Mimi adds a new Bow Wow
Trivia question about dogs. If you answer the question
(correctly or not), Mimi will donate 10 pieces of kibble to dogs who
live in shelters. This really adds up! Mimi has provided dogs with
thousands and thousands of pounds of dog food. That must be very heavy
to carry!
 2) Mimi also started a site to help feed cats. So if you go to the FreeKibbleKat.com website and answer the Meow Trivia question every day, Mimi will donate 10 pieces of kibble for cats!
 3) The third way that you can help is found at FreeRice.com.
Here, if you answer questions correctly, FreeRice will donate 10 grains
of rice to a hungry person for each question you answer. This can add
up quickly, because you can keep answering questions as long as you
want.
FreeRice has all kinds of questions. You can start at the
lowest level and build your English vocabulary. Or you can do the same
thing in other languages, too, like Spanish and French.
They
also have questions about art and famous artists, where you get to look
at famous pictures. You can also look at maps to answer questions
about countries and world capitals. And you can practice your math and
multiplication tables and earn rice for hungry people at the same
time! You also get to keep track of how much rice you've donated.
So, have fun, learn things, and help dogs, cats and people! Here's to saving the world!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
Sunday, August 23
Katie & Kimble Blog: Click on the Yellow Stripes for Surprises! (A Chapter Book Series for ages 7-10)
by
Linda Thieman
on Sun 23 Aug 2009 08:00 AM CDT
Katie & Kimble Blog: Click on the Yellow Stripes for Surprises!
 Have you noticed the yellow stripes on the sidebars of the Katie & Kimble Blog? You can click on them for little surprises!
For example, a picture of Katie's two-year-old brother, Toby, will pop up when you click one stripe.
Have your speakers on, too! The song that Mr. Russell sings in Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish will play when you click the correct stripe. It's called "For the Beauty of the Earth." It's a beautiful old hymn, and one of my favorites.
Another stripe will pop up a picture of the author (me) of Katie & Kimble at age 7! And yet another stripe will give you the sound of Twinkle barking!
Keep checking the yellow stripes. I do change the surprises from time to time!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
Saturday, August 22
Did You Know Kimble's Dress is Real? Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story, for ages 7-10
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 22 Aug 2009 01:08 PM CDT
Did You Know Kimble's Dress is Real?
 I wrote Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (a chapter book for ages 7-10, 280L) in May, 1994. At that time, I knew Kimble would be wearing a dress from the fall of 1918.
It took me years to find a pattern for Kimble's dress. I looked and looked. Then,
three years ago I finally contacted Mrs. Penny Ladnier over at CostumeGallery.com to see if she had any books or catalogs from 1918.
In Kimble's day, most girls did not go to the store and buy clothes.
They bought patterns and cloth. Then they made their dresses at
home! They would put the pattern on top of the cloth and then cut
out the pieces of the dress. Then they would sew the pieces together.
When I contacted Mrs. Ladnier, I was truly surpised. Mrs. Ladnier
had just won an auction for a pattern book from the fall of 1918!
And what was even more amazing was the auction was over in
France!
So we waited and waited for the book to arrive. Once Mrs. Ladnier
received the pattern book for children's dresses, she faxed me the
different dresses that were for a girl Kimble's age. Then I chose
one I liked.
Later, the illustrator for Katie & Kimble, Mrs. Kim Tharp, helped
me design the back of the dress. We could guess at the back
pretty well because we could see the front and the side of the dress.
Mrs. Tharp also painted in a plaid pattern for the cloth of the dress. Plaid was very popular that year.
So, that means that Kimble's dress is REAL and that real girls wore
that dress in 1918. They also wore big red bows in their hair,
just like Kimble. And we took Kimble's hairstyle and her dress
boots from the pattern book, too!
Just thought you might like to know!
Fun Katie & Kimble Hint: On the sidebars, click on the yellow stripes for a little surprise or two!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
Thursday, August 20
The Lexile® Measures for the Katie & Kimble Books are Here! (280L and 290L - for ages 7-10)
by
Linda Thieman
on Thu 20 Aug 2009 11:00 AM CDT
The Lexile® Measures for the Katie & Kimble Books are Here! (280L and 290L)
 Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Bk 1) = 280L;
Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Bk 2) = 290L
The official Lexile® measures for the Katie & Kimble books are now available.
Author Linda Thieman discusses providing Lexile® measures for parents and teachers at Reader Views Kids:
Tyler Tichelaar: Linda, what made you decide to write the books to meet the educational requirements for third graders? I’ve interviewed many children’s authors, and you’re the first to mention this—I’m impressed and it makes me think you were smart about identifying your target audience and also working your books into school programs—many children’s authors don’t have educational backgrounds and so perhaps they don’t think to test the books this way. What advice would you give to children’s authors in writing to their target audience of a specific age group of children?
Linda Thieman: Well, once the story evolved into something complex enough that I realized I was going to have to use a chapter book format, I took some good advice and went to a bookstore to look at the different levels of chapter books. A loose system was being used in which a book would be called, for instance, Reading Level 3 (RL3) or Reading Level 4 (RL4), and there was quite a big difference between the two in terms of number of words, number of chapters, chapter length, sentence length and structure, vocabulary, and the complexity of the content. So, I decided that Reading Level 3 would work for me, which roughly corresponds to third grade. I purchased a couple of books, including “The Boxcar Children,” and based the “Katie & Kimble” books on those examples. This system was sort of hit and miss, but amazingly, the Lexile® measures for the first two “Katie & Kimble” books are 280L and 290L, and “The Boxcar Children” measured at 300L. Now, however, once you do all that research and decide which reading level you wish to target, Lexile® provides writers with a free, pre-publication measure so that you know if you’re at the right level or not.
The
Lexile Framework® for Reading is a scientific approach to measuring
reading ability and the difficulty of reading materials. The Lexile
Framework includes a Lexile® measure and the Lexile scale. A Lexile
measure represents both the difficulty of a text, such as a book or
article, and an individual’s reading ability. Lexiles are expressed as
numeric measures followed by an “L” (e.g., 850L), and are placed on the
Lexile scale. The Lexile scale is a developmental scale for measuring
reader ability and text difficulty, ranging from below 200L for
beginning readers and beginning-reader materials to above 1700L for
advanced readers and materials.
Manage your students’ reading comprehension
Lexile
measures allow you to manage comprehension. Matching a reader’s Lexile
measure with a text with the same Lexile measure leads to an expected 75-percent comprehension rate—not
too difficult to be frustrating, but difficult enough to be challenging
and to encourage reading progress. You can further adjust anticipated
comprehension simply by choosing more or less difficult texts within a student’s Lexile range, which spans 50L above and 100L below his or her Lexile measure.
Download Lexile Measures in the Classroom here.
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Bk 1) = 280L
Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Bk 2) = 290L
MetaMetrics,
Lexile, Lexile Framework, Lexile Analyzer, the Lexile symbol, Quantile,
Quantile Framework and the Quantile symbol are trademarks or U.S.
registered trademarks of MetaMetrics, Inc. The names of other companies
and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective
owners. © 2007 MetaMetrics, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with
permission.
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
Wednesday, August 19
Katie & Kimble Go Green! (Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish, for ages 7-10)
by
Linda Thieman
on Wed 19 Aug 2009 10:00 AM CDT
Katie & Kimble Go Green!
 You might not notice how “green” the Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story chapter book series is until you get to the second book, Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish.
In the second Katie & Kimble
book, we discover that the Russell family is trying to eat healthier
foods. Can you think of an example? That’s right—they only have pizza
on special occasions and they don’t eat much red meat anymore.
Katie’s
family also cares about the earth and about all living things, like
trees. For example, when Katie’s dad does the grocery shopping, he
takes cloth bags with him. No paper or plastic for him! And when he
puts up a swing on the old oak tree in the backyard, he’s very careful
not to harm the tree and he doesn’t use any nails at all.
Mr. Russell also shows how much he cares about the earth when he sings one of his favorite songs in Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish. It’s called “For the Beauty of the Earth.” It’s a beautiful old hymn. You can listen to free samples of the song here.
For the Beauty of the Earth
Fun Katie & Kimble Hint: On the sidebars, click on the yellow stripes for a little surprise or two!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story (Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
Paperback version: $5.95
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story!
Click here to order Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2)!
Instant download version: $2.48
Click here to order the instant download editions.
[Reading Level 3, 280L, for ages 7-10]
Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family look
normal. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble,
the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble
and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to
Kimble's mother.
|
What Our Readers Think About Katie & Kimble
Kids
RSS Newsfeeds
Main Page RSS
|
