Molly Fisher describes her site as a place to find craft ideas, tutorials, and inspiration for creative people. Molly started Craft Ideas Weekly to find and share craft projects, art, things, people, and experiences that inspire her. It is important to Molly’s to create and learn how others do too. Craft Ideas Weekly was created to find out about the beautiful arts and crafts people make and share that with other crafts people around the world. Artists of all kinds are invited to share a step by step project each week with readers of Craft Ideas weekly. A unique feature of the site …offering  an email hotline to help on a project if you are stuck.

Visit the site at www.craftideasweekly.com

Craft Ideas For Kids – if you love to do crafts with your children, there are plenty on Molly’s site to choose from: just click on the underlined title and there you are!

Holiday Craft Ideas – You will never be at a loss for holiday crafts. There are ideas for every holiday including  4th Of July Crafts, Mothers and Fathers Day Crafts. Halloween, Christmas, and more…so… click  on the underlined title and explore the holiday crafts.

Please check out Parent Exchange on this blog to learn more about Molly Fisher. “Can Do” Street will soon launch  a resources center and feature a few crafts from Craft Ideas Weekly.

Raquel, as chef and owner of A Pinch of Salt in NYC, offers hands-on cooking instruction to adults and children. She believes in teaching children how to eat healthy. This past summer she volunteered at PS 11, in NYC, teaching a group of 3rd graders how to prepare meals using the crops they sold at their very own farmer’s market. Students worked side by side with Chef Raquel making such things as vegetable crostinis and  Greek salads and enjoyed eating their creations.

She is now participating in a project to revamp school “food” to real cooked foods, as a part of Wellness in the Schools (WITS), which operates the Cook for Kids program in New York City public school kitchens and classrooms, serving 6,500 children. Under the leadership of Chef Bill Telepan, WITS sends culinary school graduates into public school kitchens to prepare fresh meals from scratch and to educate families about the importance of eating whole, unprocessed food.

As a WITS in Residence, Chef Raquel signed on to train public school cafeteria workers to return to slow cooking. The project involves her staying at a school for a year to insure that the the cafeteria staff will feel comfortable continuing the new menus after she leaves. Continue Reading »

If there is a lull in the conversation, or the dinner isn’t quite ready on time; pull out these questions and see who is up on Thanksgiving trivia!

What State produces the most turkeys? Minnesota,  according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with a total of 45.5 million in 2009.

What other states are major producers of the estimated 2750 million birds that were raised in the U.S. this year? They are North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia and California

About how many turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving? According to The National Turkey Federation about 46 million turkeys, one fifth of the annual total of 235 million eaten  in the US  in 2007, were eaten at Thanksgiving.

What percentage of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day? The National Turkey Federation, conducted a survey and found that nearly 88 percent of Americans said they eat turkey at Thanksgiving.

What is the average weight of a turkey bought for Thanksgiving ? 15 pounds!

What states produce the most cranberries ? Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Oregon

How many cranberries were produced in 2009 ? 709 million pounds

What states produce the most pumpkins? Illinois, New York, California and Pennslyvania

What states produce the most sweet potatoes? North Carolina, California and Mississippi

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicola Fourie created a business around the activities she shared and continues to share with her daughter. These days she shares her  ideas on her web sites. The sites feature games and crafts for the younger set.

In a recent newsletter, Nicola shared, “It seems that playing games is a lost art. So I decided to start searching for all the recreational games that I could find.  Game playing is important to a child. Children learn through play and active exploration. Many toys and games encourage learning and develop skills in planning and sequencing, eye-hand coordination, visual perception and fine motor control. Group games help in moral and social development. Studies have shown that 80% of what kids learn is by doing, and learning is increased by an average of 50% when it’s fun and playful.”

Here are two of Nicola’s suggestions for having fun with activities using things that can be found around the house

Printing

Use anything around the house such as oranges, potato, pegs, rollers, bits of sponges etc and dab them in paint. Press these objects then onto paper and see the different prints they make. Little ones really enjoy this activity as it combines sensory and creative skills. Create masterpieces of art with things around the house and a little paint.

What’s in the box?

For a couple of weeks, save all your empty grocery cartons like cereal boxes, egg cartons and plastic bottles with tops. Clean them up, glue down the flaps of the cardboard cartons, and you have all the stock you need for a grocery store. You can use old coins or plastic money for added authenticity, and older children can make their own banknotes. This is great for teaching simple math.

Nicola is featured in our Parent Exchange on the Navigation Bar of this blog.

You can visit her sites at:

www.365KidsGames.com

www.new-kids-crafts.com

Our guest post is about  a teacher who developed a very tech savvy, yet practical way of helping children with their reading.

The Skyping Reading Tutor? Who ever heard of a Skyping Reading Tutor. Well, now that the Internet continues to develop, this innovate teacher is able to teach children to read with Skype. She does all of her assessments online, finds out what skills are strong, what skills need to be developed, and creates a personalized curriculum for each student. She is finding that the struggling readers of today love learning how to read with her online.

Typically, students who cannot read well do not spend a lot of time on the computer. This gives them an opportunity to be on the computer, see their teacher, and be guided to increase their reading level.

The Skyping Reading Tutor has found that students are excited to learn via Skype being that they are in the comfort their own home where they feel safe. She finds that her students take risks and tell her things that they may be embarrassed to say during class time where the other students can judge what they are saying.

The Skyping Reading Tutor also volunteers in classrooms reading books to kids all over the world via Skype. Her passion is to motivate all children to read. She inspires kids to read by sharing the best books out there for them. She also works with teachers to find out what books would be best to share with each of the classes and schedules a 15 minute Skype session with them. Then she shares her experience of reading to kids online on her blog at http://skypingreadingtutor.wordpress.com.

She has a ton of favorite experiences with skyping in the classroom, but the one that stands out to her the most is the classroom that was learning their spelling words to buy a goat for children in Africa. The Skyping Reading Tutor read Beatrice’s Goat, which is a true story about how a goat changed one families life and helped a young girl raise enough money to go to school. The children in this class had earned $10 so far and it was their goal to earn enough money to buy 2 goats. The cost of one goat is $120. These children were passionate and motivated. The teacher was unable to find the book Beatrice’s Goat and the Skyping Reading Tutor was able to share it with them via Skype’s share screen feature. The experience increased their desires to raise the money.

So who is this Skyping Reading Tutor? Her name is Joanne Kaminski and she has taught in the public school system for over 10 years. She taught 3rdand 4th grade in the inner city where 75% of her students struggled with reading. She became a reading coordinator for her school and went back for her Master’s degree as a Reading Specialist. She has created her own business to tutor children online called Bright IDEA Reading Tutoring and has students all over the United States. To find out more information you can check her out at http://www.wix.com/jbkaminski/tutoring.

Be sure to visit the “Can Do” Kids blog and see Joanne reading a poem she wrote to her daughter’s class via Skype at www.candostreet.com/blog-kids/