The Undercover Kids Trivia Quiz!
February 5, 2010 at 1:53 pm | In Education, Educators, Kids and reading, Mystery books, Parents, Writing, crafts | 1 CommentTags: the Undercover Kids, Hudson Valley Parent, quizzes, children writing activitings, educating activities for children, activities you can make with friends, games for kids, teacher guide
We know what you are thinking a quiz does not sound like fun, especially on a Friday, but quizzes can be fun! You learn new information, you can test your friends and turn into a game. Test yourself, how fast can you answer the questions, what about your friends, how fast can they go? Try turning the quiz into a race, the one who answers the most questions correctly and the fastest wins a prize. (I vote you make a batch of brownies before you play the quiz game and when you are done playing hand a brownie out to everyone, so everyone wins!)
Try making your own Undercover Kids quiz about the book and hand it out to your friends. Don’t forget to tell your teacher about our downloadable teacher’s guide, where they can download even more fun activities!
Post Card Fun!
January 28, 2010 at 3:27 pm | In Education, Kids and reading, Mystery books, Parents, Writing | Leave a CommentTags: book activities, children and books, children's mystery books, Gloria Smith Zawaski, Hudson Valley Parent, postcards, The Exciting Read Publishing Group, the Undercover Kids, travel, winter activities
A great activity that incorporates a sense of travel is creating your own postcards. A postcard is used to carry a message, usually with a picture or a photograph on one side, that can be sent through the mail without an envelope. Just like sending a letter is an old-fashioned, so is sending a postcard. It can be a great way to keep in touch with friends or even as an art project! Get some construction paper, a ruler, colored pencils, crayons, and scissors. Cut out a rectangle out of your construction paper that is approximately 4×6 inches/10 by 15 cm, place divisions on the back of the card into message and address sections and the front is yours to decorate however you would like. You can draw on the front, place pictures of your family, or make a collage! Mail your creative postcards to a friend, a family member or another Undercover Kid. Write them a secret message or a simple hello, the choice is yours. Enjoy!
Use your imagination to create your own an Undercover Kid Play
January 28, 2010 at 3:26 pm | In Education, Kids and reading, Mystery books, Publishing your story, Puppets, Writing | Leave a CommentTags: the Undercover Kids, Hudson Valley Parent, children's mystery books, children and writing, playwriting, creating characters, create plays, using your imagination, Hudson Valley children books, travel books for kids
Did you like to act? When I was younger, I loved to act out plays and create my own characters in those plays. Once we created the Undercover Kid’s puppet show and started taking it around to schools, I started to notice what a great play this book would make. There’s adventure, comedy and suspense all these things make for an exciting play. (It would be really funny to see Cooper running around on stage). What if the Undercover Kids ended up on Broadway? I’m getting ahead of myself. But I could definitely see the Undercover Kids on Stage.
Do you think that you could write your own play involving the Undercover Kids? What would happen? Where would they go? Would you be in the play too? Write your own play (it could even be a page), then act it out for your friends and family. Post it on YouTube with your parent’s permission and maybe you will become an internet star!
Word Art: How to Combine pictures and illustrations!
January 21, 2010 at 11:17 am | In Education, Kids and reading, Writing, crafts | 2 CommentsTags: drawing, educational crafts, Hudson Valley Parent, illustrations, the Undercover Kids, word art, writing practice, writing. kid crafts
Here’s a fun activity that allows you to write and draw at the same time! In this activity, instead of coloring in shapes or shading them, students will print and repeat words related to the picture to fill in the area.
Grades: 3-8
Materials: Paper and coloring materials
Instructions:
Draw a picture (outline only) of a cartoon character (Like one of the undercover kids!), still life scene, person or any idea the child has. Fill in the open area with printed words related to the object or letters of the alphabet. For example, if you draw an outline of an apple you can fill in the picture with the words: seeds, red, the letter “a”, etc.
Be sure to print in medium to large letters/words inside the outlines, or the project will take too long. Before you know it you will have a creative art project with both words and illustrations! Very cool!
Make Story Writing a Family Event
January 14, 2010 at 12:04 pm | In Education, Grandparents, Kids and reading, Mystery books, Parents, Writing, crafts | Leave a CommentTags: 101 Great Gifts Kids Can Make, books, crafts, crafts for kids, drawing, family activities, Gloria Smith Zawaski, Hudson Valley, Hudson Valley Parent, reading, Stephanie Mueller and Ann Wheeler, stories, story making, the Undercover Kids, Writing
Encourage time together with a homemade storybook! This is something that Jake and Katie would love to do with their parents or their Aunt Jean!
Check out this craft from the great book “101 Great Gifts Kids Can Make” by Stephanie Mueller and Ann Wheeler.
Materials:
three-hole punch white copier paper three-ring binder markers or crayons black permanent marker
Before beginning the activity: Use the three-hole punch to make holes along the sides of the white paper.
What to Do:
1. Think of a story and draw pictures to make a book using the white paper with the holes in the sides. 2. Dictate a statement or story about the pictures that were drawn. Write these along the top of the pictures that were drawn using the permanent black marker. 3. Place the pages into the three-ring binder, along with 10 (or more) blank pages. 4. Decorate a white piece of paper without holes using the markers. Write “Family Story Notebook.” Many binders have a clear cover pocket in which the cover page can be inserted. If this is not the case, use clear contact paper to adhere this cover page to the front of the notebook (with adult help, as needed). 5. Once you complete one story, keep going until your binder is full. You will have a complete collection of family stories!
Can you tell a story in six words?
January 8, 2010 at 1:49 pm | In Education, Kids and reading, Writing | Leave a CommentTags: Gloria Smith Zawaski, the Undercover Kids, The Exciting Read Publishing Group, Hudson Valley, NY, fun writing, creativity, games, writing activities, children and writing, creating a story
The group here at excitingread publishing group is always looking for fun writing activities for kids to enjoy. One activity you can try is telling a story in only six words! I tried this activity myself by choosing a topic to write about then timing myself to see how many six word stories I could do in ten minutes. Let me tell you this was quite a challenge! This is a great way to practice your descriptive language and writing skills. Check out this website to learn more! On the website you can view a book of memoirs (when a writer writes about his or her own life), that was put together by third grade students.
Here are some examples:
“Five continents down, two to go.”
“Age 11: became a middle child.”
“Fourteen years old, story still untold.”
“Looking to know everything about everything.”
Those are just a few of the creative entries. I’m sure there are more stories to be told. What’s yours?
Cold Winter Nights Don’t Have to be Boring!
December 24, 2009 at 11:18 am | In Education, Parents | Leave a CommentTags: activities for learning, books, fun family projects, Great Teacher Projects book, kids and imagination, Legos, maps, the Undercover Kids, winter activities
Ever since I was kid, I’ve always had an active imagination. Especially during the winter months, being cooped up inside all day led to some pretty crazy adventures. That’s why I cam relate to the Undercover Kids, they used their imagination and traveled. Lucky! Now that children have at least a week or two off from school, you can help them express their imagination by reading a book with them or even playing a game.
Here’s an activity I found in Great Teacher Projects book by Laura Mayne (even though teachers might be too reminding about school, the project is fun trust me!)
How to create your own country:
This activity is a way for kids to act silly, have fun but learn at the same time.
In this project, kids will be able to create their own country. Their imaginary country can be placed anywhere in the world, and must use information about the surrounding real countries to determine features such as latitude/longitude, native animals, climate and so on.
Lead up activities to this project include a review of atlas skills and a whole-class study of a chosen country that includes details such as:
- name and meaning
- geographical location
- area
- boundaries and surrounding countries
- landforms
- climate
- native animals and plants
- languages
- natural resources
- flag
- government
- currency (money)
- time zone
When children are done creating their own countries, have them create a map using crayons, markers, or whatever other craft materials they would like to use. They could even use Legos to create their own lands (I used Polly Pockets when I was a little girl). Have you children discuss their countries with you and share any stories they may create with this project. Maybe Katie and Jake could visit their country? Either way, let imagination flow!
Reflecting on the Past Year- An Undercover Kid Activity
December 18, 2009 at 11:51 am | In Grandparents, Mystery books, Parents | Leave a CommentTags: activities, crafts, families, Grandparents, holidays, Parents, scrapbooking, the Undercover Kids, travel
As you may know, The Undercover Kids love to travel. What about you? Do you have the travel bug? Does your family? Well, even if your family just loves to travel to the store or maybe to more exotic places, we have a fun activity for you to do together to reflect on the past year. This activity is a great way to think about any trips you went on during the year or even dream about where you would like to travel to in the future.
Take some pictures of your family from the past year to make a scrapbook page. It’s an easy and fun way to remember the great memories you made in the past year and a way to reflect on the upcoming New Year. You can also leave a space on the bottom of the page to journal about what you and your children (or grandchildren, or nieces, nephews, etc.) have done this year so far. You can place the pages you make into clear page protectors and put them into a 3-ring binder for an easy homemade scrapbook. All you need is some simple art supplies to make a creative and interesting photo scrapbook. You can even decorate the pages with cutouts of Katie, Jake or Cooper taken from our website. Bake some cookies, drink some hot chocolate and most importantly have fun! Thanks for reading and stay in touch for more fun crafts and activities.
How a book is born: Who prints books?
December 9, 2009 at 11:07 am | In Educators, Kids and reading, Mystery books, Publishing your story, Writing | Leave a CommentTags: book publishing, children and reading, getting your book published, Hudson Valley Parent, printing your book, the Undercover Kids, working with a printer, writing a book
Now I am really immersed in the book, the copy, layout and illustrations. It is time to find a printer. The printer we use for our magazines does not have book printer contacts. Many of the publishers I spoke to used niche printers that were not appropriate for me: like soft cover printers, picture book printers and oversees printers.
I looked on the web, but felt that it would be a crap shoot picking someone blind, even with references. So I kept looking. Finally, I found Woodstock Press with offices in upstate New York and in Manhatten. I was lucky to be referred to Olivia Blanchflower from Overlook Press. She put me in contact with printers that Overlook Press uses. Her support was invaluable.
I found that the book publishing industry is a new world with a new language. Trade book page. Linen embossed gloss. Head and foot bands. Bar code labels. Burst casebind. Kappa board. And the list goes on.
Some printers do covers only. Others only do paperback or the inside guts. I chose two printers who could do it all. And then I tried to get the best deal. I was told that the best prices come through China but I decided to stay in the states so I could have more control over the process.
I used Berryville Graphics in Virginia. They delivered what they promised. There were several things I learned. First, the output of the pages for books is very different from magazines that are printed on newsprint. The copies from our printer look great. But the proofs we got back did not match. Their output is more sensitive to the blending of grays, and we had to change our pages so the grey backgrounds for captions did not overwhelm the copy. And second was the issue of price and how many books to print. But that I will deal with in another blog.
Katie, Jake & Cooper
Great adventure, Mystery & history books for kids. Plus fundraising opportunities for community groups.
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