Hear the Dreidel Songs! In
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story, Book 1 in the Katie & Kimble
series, Kimble teaches Katie how to play dreidel.
Dreidel is a game that Jewish children play during Hanukah.
Dreidels
come in many sizes with many different designs and colors. The dreidel
pictured on the left is called a Noah's Ark dreidel because the
pictures tell the story of Noah's Ark. It was painted by an artist
named Yair Emanuel. It's got a little stand to hold it up.
The
dreidel on the right is really something amazing to see. It's very big
- 10 inches high, in fact - and it's a plush toy! I thought that was
pretty interesting. I don't suppose you can actually play dreidel with
such a big dreidel, but it might be comfy to keep on your bed!
In Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story,
you learn how to play dreidel at the same time that Kimble teaches
Katie how to play. However, you might not know how to pronounce the
letters on the dreidel. I wanted Katie & Kimble readers to be able
to hear how to say the Hebrew letters. So, I made up a list of two
different dreidel songs from iTunes so you
can hear free samples. In the first Dreidel Song, in the chorus, they
sing all the different letters on the dreidel.
Kenny Ellis sings his hit single from his Hanukkah Swings! Album on Favored Nations Records. Check out: www.kennyellis.com
Interesting Fact:
Hanukah is sometimes spelled in different ways! You might see it like
this, with 2 k's--Hanukkah--or you might see it like this, with a
c--Chanukah!
Mom’s Choice Awards® has named the Katie & Kimbleseries among the best in family-friendly media,
products and services. Winner: Juvenile Books Series.
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story(Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available in the Katie & Kimble Shop and also on Amazon.com:
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.
Funny True Stories about the Author of Katie & Kimble! Hi! My name is Linda Thieman and I'm the author of the Katie & Kimble books. I thought the Katie & Kimble readers might like to know what my childhood was like.
When I was a kid, my
dad would try just about anything. One time, my mom got us
these new vitamins. They looked like candy, but you couldn't chew
them. My sister and I knew they would taste terrible.
But one morning, my dad saw
the new vitamins and he wanted to try one. We said, "Don't chew it!" but he didn't
care. So he popped a vitamin in his mouth and started chewing. Oh my
gosh, the look on his face was so funny. His nose crinkled up and he
chewed it as fast as he could. Then he agreed that it was better not
to chew the vitamin! I was 8 when that happened. I
also wrote three more true stories for you to read. They are on the
right sidebar of the Katie & Kimble blog in the Activity Corner.
The first one is
from when I was 7
and it's a funny story about my dog, my dad and my little sister. In
this story, my dad plays a trick on our dog to see what the dog will do!
The second one is from when I was 8 and it's about my dad and a funny trick we played with a piano!
The third one is from when I was 9 and we lived across the street from a baseball player. He played third base for the Minnesota Twins. That was a lot of fun!
Fun Katie & Kimble Hint: Click on the author's name at the top of any post and learn all about her (including how to pronounce her name)!
Mom’s Choice Awards® has named the Katie & Kimbleseries among the best in family-friendly media,
products and services. Winner: Juvenile Books Series.
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story(Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
[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.
Kids, You Can Help Save the World Here! If you've read the award-winning 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!
Mom’s Choice Awards® has named the Katie & Kimbleseries among the best in family-friendly media,
products and services. Winner: Juvenile Books Series.
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story(Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
[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.
Visit Our Katie & Kimble Activity Corner! We have lots of fun things to do in our Katie & Kimble Activity Corner!
You will find the Katie & Kimble Activity Corner on the right sidebar of the Katie & Kimble blog.
Send Katie & Kimble e-cards
to your friends and family. It's totally free, with no ads and no
pop-ups. And we don't take your email address, either. And
you can add a song to your e-card, too! I even
added "Happy Birthday" and "Graceful Ghost!"
Try asking the author (that's me, Linda Thieman) a question. Did you read Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story? What did you think? Let me know. You can click here to ask me a question. Then click on "Post a Comment."
Haven't
read Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story yet? Well, now you can
read the first six chapters free, right online. Click here to download the PDF of the first six chapters -- with all the pictures from the book, too!
You can also download free Katie & Kimble coloring pages! Just click here
and the coloring pages will open into a PDF file in Acrobat Reader for
you. You can print out the coloring pages and color away!
There
are many more things to do in the Katie & Kimble Activity
Corner. Just look over on the right sidebar and you'll see them!
[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.
Teacher's Corner: Cereal Box Book Reports As so much of the plot of Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish
centers around a box of cereal, I thought this clever and fun idea to
build a book report around a cereal box was the perfect class or
homeschool activity to feature here on the Katie & Kimble Blog. The
activity comes from the book 24 Ready-to-Go Genre Book Reports by Susan Ludwig (Scholastic) and was adapted for the Katie &
Kimble Blog by Mrs. Barbara Day, a 4th grade teacher from Des Moines,
Iowa.
My
students read fiction, and created a Cereal Box Book Report. Students
were to invent a cereal based on a fictional book that they had read
during the month. They were to think of a name and shape for the
cereal that was somehow connected to the book they had read. We
covered real cereal boxes with paper, and each side of the box was to
follow a specific guideline:
* Front: the name of the cereal and picture to go with it. * Back: A game based on the story, which must include information from the story.
* Right Side: Ingredients—the characters and story setting. (Some of
the kids got confused on this one and just listed food ingredients.) * Left Side: A summary of the book, including the main conflict and resolution. * Top: The title and author of the book, and the student’s name.
The
last step was for students to plan and present a commercial for their
cereal to the class. I was very pleased with the results. We had 100%
completion of this project, and the kids seemed enthusiastic.
Thank you to Mrs. Day for
sharing your classroom experience with us, and to Ms. Ludwig for
allowing us to reproduce such an exciting classroom activity from her
creative book. We appreciate it!
Mom’s Choice Awards® has named the Katie & Kimbleseries among the best in family-friendly media,
products and services. Winner: Juvenile Books Series. Now you can read the first 6 chapters of Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story for free. Click here to download the PDF. All the pictures are included!
Katie & Kimble Blog: A Visit from a Baseball Player! Have
you read the story about the baseball player I knew when I was a kid?
It's over on the right sidebar of the Katie & Kimble Blog. It's
called "When I was 9: The Baseball Player," and it's a true story.
When
we lived in Minnesota, Rich Rollins was the third baseman for the
Minnesota Twins. He was also our neighbor. When I created the Katie
& Kimble blog, I wrote a true story about Rich and posted it on
the blog.
Well, one day, Rich's son, Jim Rollins, was googling his dad's name and
he came across my story on this blog. Then, when he went over to visit
his parents, he showed them the story. Here is what Jim had to say: "I showed [my dad] the story and he really enjoyed the memory." It was a lot of fun for my family to hear from Rich, his wife Lynn, and their son, Jim, too! Thanks, Jimmy!
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story(Book 1 in the series) and Katie & Kimble: The Magic Wish (Book 2 in the series) are available here:
[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.
In
Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story, Book 1 in the Katie & Kimble
series, Kimble teaches Katie how to play dreidel.
In Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story,
you learn how to play dreidel at the same time that Kimble teaches
Katie how to play. However, you might not know how to pronounce the
letters on the dreidel. I wanted Katie & Kimble readers to be able
to hear how to say the Hebrew letters. So, I made up a list of two
different dreidel songs from iTunes so you
can hear free samples. In the first Dreidel Song, in the chorus, they
sing all the different letters on the dreidel.
Mom’s Choice Awards® has named the Katie & Kimble series among the best in family-friendly media,
products and services. Winner: Juvenile Books Series.
I
also wrote three more true stories for you to read. They are on the
right sidebar of the Katie & Kimble blog in the Activity Corner.
* Front: the name of the cereal and picture to go with it.
Have
you read the story about the baseball player I knew when I was a kid?
It's over on the right sidebar of the Katie & Kimble Blog. It's
called "
