Library! December 19

I think I have contacted everyone who can go, but just in case, I'll write it here, too. Let's meet in the foreign language picture books section of the library at 10:30. See you there!

Cooking Day!

Delicious! Well done, everyone!! After all the chopping, mixing, slicing & dicing, we made a spectacular feast. What was your favorite? I loved the potstickers! I have posted the recipes here if you want to try them at home. Check out the pictures, too.

Simple Pork Potstickers

I N G R E D I E N T S
2 scallions, minced
1 cup finely chopped green cabbage
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1/2 pound ground pork
Salt
1 egg white
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 package gyoza or wonton skins (thicker)


I N S T R U C T I O N S

1. In large bowl combine scallions, cabbage, ginger, and pork. Mix well with a fork and season with salt.

2. Add egg white to bind mixture together. Place a spoonful of meat mixture on top of a wonton wrapper. Wet edge of wrapper with fingertips, make pleats on one side, fold over and seal closed. Continue with remaining meat.

3. In large skillet heat oil. Brown dumplings in oil on one side. When bottoms are brown and crispy, add water. Cover pan and steam over medium heat for 8 - 10 minutes, until dumplings are cooked through. Serve with dipping sauce.


Dipping sauce

30 ml Soya sauce
100 ml juiced yuzu or kabosu
splash of lemon juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
70 ml rice vinegar


Grandma Bobbie's Broccoli Salad

1 big head of broccoli
1 large carrot
1 bunch of green onions
1/2 - 3/4 cup of sunflower seeds
1/2 - 3/4 cup of raisins
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white sugar
3 teaspoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon grainy mustard (optional)

1. Cut broccoli into small pieces. Cut the stem off, then peel it and cut into small cubes (about 1 cm). Separate the broccoli flowers into smaller and smaller pieces. If the stems get too long as you separate the flowers, just cut them off and chop them up. Put the cut up broccoli in a bowl.

2. Peel and grate the carrot. Add it to the bowl with the broccoli.

3. Chop the green onions into small rings. Add them to the bowl.

4. Add the sunflower seeds and raisins to the bowl. Toss all of the ingredients together. Set aside.

5. In a large measuring cup or small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar and mustard well. Taste it to make sure it is not too sweet and not tooo sour. If too sour, add a little more sugar. If too sweeet, add a little more vinegary.

6. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss together, making sure the dressing coats all of the vegetables evenly.

7. Chill the salad in the refrigerator until it's time to eat!


For the egg drop soup, click here for the recipe.

Cooking Day December 12

Hi everyone -
Well, I think that our shopping lists were prepared well, so if everyone manages to get what's on their lists, we should be all set for cooking next Saturday!

We are going to meet at Provenzanos' place next Saturday. If you don't know where it is (Natsuko?), please contact me for directions. Also, our meeting time is going to be a little earlier - 10:00a.m., please. I think we'll need the extra time to put the finishing touches on our yummy lunch.

Please bring your shopping list (if you are a shopper), the things you bought, and the shopping receipts. Also, please bring an apron for yourself, and if possible a knife AND a chopping board for cutting up ingredients. The salad, soup, potstickers AND crepes need lots of ingredients chopped up. It would be great if each family member could also bring their own chopsticks -- then we won't have to buy and throw away disposable ones.

For homework, since we didn't have enough time to do the Fable's comprehension questions in class, please take a few minutes to do those questions. I won't be checking them at the cooking day, but it would be great for you to work on them so you have a little reading/writing time this week.

See you Saturday, chefs!
(Who is that girl???? I don't know, but she looks like she knows what she's doing!)

Hhhhhhomework!

Hi guys - as I mentioned in class last week, I would like you to have a close look at your "holiday" report and do some editing of it. Look carefully for spelling mistakes (use a dictionary if you need to), check for capitals at the beginning of sentences and punctuation in all the right places. Make sure all your verbs are in the right form (NOT "Last year I give a present to my friend...").

I would also like to do a little reading - read the story on p 96, and we'll work on the questions in class.

I am thinking that December 12 (not this week's class but next week's class) should be COOKING DAY!! Let's review our menu and make plans for getting the ingredients. I don't remember our menu exactly, but I remember Nina's chicken soup, Sophie's Chinese potstickers, Angus' dipping sauce, and ... ?! Broccoli salad? Help! Remember that cooking day will happen at the Provenzanos' house, not at Ropponmatsu.

See you Saturday!

For Saturday, November 28

Hi guys - just a reminder that tomorrow we'll be going over your "holiday" report, so please be sure to bring it! Remember that if you don't have enough space on page 129 to write your whole report, then you can attach an extra page. If you had already written your report when I last saw you (Ren, Angus, Kyle...) then you are NOT homework-free! You can look over your report and REVISE. Think of the things we talked about in class and IMPROVE your paragraphs wherever you can. Do you have topic sentences? Do you have good examples? Is the spelling correct? Do you have capitals and periods where they need to be? Good writers revise their writing several times before they are "done". I'm looking forward to reading your work!

Also, as usual, I hope to read some interesting journal entries. I think I'll be reading a lot about some HOCKEY games...?!

See you tomorrow!
Christie

Halloween Pictures

Hi guys! Most of you have the DVD from the Halloween Party, but I thought I'd post some pictures here just for fun.

Next week's class (November 21)

I'll be away next class, and so will Doug, but SCOTT is going to be there to lead the lesson! I would like to look at your holiday report (page 129) in 2 weeks, so please work on making some good paragraphs and I will check it then. Homework for Scott's class is a journal entry.

See you in two weeks!
Christie

Homework for Saturday, November 14

Hi everybody!

I think most of you know that the homework is to outline a short report about your favorite holiday. You can sketch out your outline on page 128. Remember that it's useful to generate ideas by using a Mind Map first, then you can pull out your favorite ideas to use in the outline. The adults will spend some time with each of you to look over your outlines.

I'd also love to read another journal entry (as usual!). By the way, it turns out that I DIDN'T have Ren's journal... it was Nozomi's!

See you all on Saturday.

Happy After-Halloween!

It was so great to see all of you dressed up for Halloween -- you did a fantastic job on the Photo Scavenger Hunt and I'm going to show you the pictures on Saturday (I am saving them for Saturday so I won't post any of them here...)

So this week let's make sure that EVERYBODY finishes the questions for Baucis and Philemon, and I am looking forward to reading your journals this week. (Ren, I still have yours, so you can just write this week's journal on a piece of paper and we can stick it in your journal later.)

Our cooking plans got waylaid by Halloween excitement, so let's start thinking about those plans again. We need to set a day for cooking!!

See you on Saturday...
Christie

HALLOWEEN PARTY!!!!

Ok -- Doug and I finally had a chance to meet and decide things for the party, so here's the scoop:

Please come to the usual place in Ropponmatsu a little before 6:30 -- we'd like everybody to be READY TO GO in costumes, etc. right on the dot of 6:30. I will be there from about 5:30 so if you and your family want to bring a quick bento to eat there, the place will be open.

We will be doing a scavenger hunt for main party activity, so make sure your costume is easy to walk in and that you don't have to carry any extra things (Richie, make sure all your guns and grenades can be attached to you so you don't have your hands full!)

Please bring:

A costume to wear
A flashlight

We will go on our walkabout right from 6:30, so please be on time. After the walkabout, we'll have a couple of games and a treat back at the Kashi Jimusho before we say goodnight.

We think the party will finish at about 8:00 (or probably 8:30!) Remember that we WON'T have a class Saturday morning, so everybody can sleep in!

Let me know if you have any questions -- see you tomooooooooorrow!

Christie

Halloween plans and reading homework...

Hello, one and all!

Are you getting ready for Halloween? We have prepared a plan for this year's Halloween party, so please talk to your Mom and Dad about the schedule and let me know on Saturday if it works for you. This year we are planning a Friday night party (October 30 from maybe 6:30? Time is not decided...). This year we are going to try to meet at the usual place in Ropponmatsu instead of the Provenzano house. We'll get together there, put our costumes on, then head out into the darkness for another fun Halloween Walkabout! After finishing all the tasks on the Walkabout course, we'll go back to the Kashi Jimusho (I don't know how to spell that...) for a game or 2 if there's time.

About homework, let's do some reading in the BrainQuest book - pages 94 and 95. Please do the questions before you come to class and we can go over them together. As usual, I'd love to read a journal entry, too.

See you Saturday!

homework homework homework, yippee!!!

Hi, gang! It sounds like several people are going to be absent this week, so it might be difficult to continue with our cooking project this time (although if you have already prepared some soup recipes, I think we'd all love to look at them). I thought it would be nice to do some reading together, so why don't you bring a book from home that you really like, and we'll choose one or two to read together? And for a little extra homework, let's do pages 50 and 51 in the workbook (if you don't remember what nouns are, check the Brain Box!).

See you Saturday :-)

Some photos

Here are a few photos from the Silver Week camping trip enjoyed by a couple of families from our group. It wasn't exactly a Big Kidz activity, but a few of the Big Kidz asked me if I'd post some photos on this blog, so here they are!

Hikers all in a row ... you probably know everybody here except perhaps Ayami, sitting next to Sophie.

Sophie and Angus manning the barbeque on the second night

Angus organizes the fire builders

It'll be good for marshmallows very soon... yum!

Homework for Saturday, October 3

Hi everybody -

I hope you are having a good week, even though it is so humid! I have been thinking aobut our lesson this Saturday, and I would like to continue looking at our recipes so we can get closer to deciding what we'll cook. Please bring your recipes and the Food Pyramid worksheet from last week and we will continue with that.

Let's do another journal entry for Saturday, too, and why don't you dust off your BrainQuest book and try to explain some idioms on pages 48 and 49?

See you Saturday!

Homework for Saturday September 26th

Sorry for the late homework posting! Silver week fun got in the way...

This Saturday, bring your recipes again -- we will work on our cooking plan some more. Also, please do a journal entry. You can write about your Silver Week holiday, or anything else that is interesting for you.

See you Saturday!

Christie

Homework

Hi everybody -

Just a little homework from class last Saturday. Remember to practice your connected cursive writing by copying these limericks into your old notebook:


There once was a man from Peru,
Who dreamed of eating his shoe,
he awoke with a fright,
in the middle of the night,
and found that his dream had come true!


There was a young lady from Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
After the ride
She was inside,
And the smile was on the face of the tiger.


And please spend a little time writing in your journal -- you can write about something interesting you did in summer vacation, or whatever you like!

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday -
Christie

Summer's end...

Hello from Canada, everyone! Sophie, Maya, Phil and I have had a great time over here, but now the girls and I are getting ready to jump back into life in Fukuoka. That includes getting together with all of you!!

Correct me if I am wrong, Doug, but I think our first meeting will be September 5 at the usual time. Nick and Doug came up with a great idea for each person to discuss where they went this summer. Near or far, see if you can bring a map (of Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan, Canada, England, WHEREVER!) to show where you went and get ready to talk about something fun/interesting you did during the summer.

Looking forward to seeing you all --

Christie

Homework

This week should be little lighter than last week -- just write at least 1 page in your journal (remember to DOUBLE SPACE, please!), and try the reading and questions on page 92 and 93. I am especially interested in the question at the bottom of page 93: "What is your favorite meal? List the ingredients you need to make it." Make sure you do this question when your Mom or Dad is around so they can help you if you don't know all the ingredients you need for your favorite dish.

See you Saturday! (Remember to wear loose, stretchy clothes so we can do yoga easily!)

Christie

For Natsuko

Sorry, I don't know your e-mail address, so I will leave you a message here! Please tell your Mom that she can order the BrainQuest Grade 3 workbook through Amazon.co.jp: click here

See you Saturday!

Homework

Good job on your persuasive paragraphs, guys! I also enjoyed reading your journals. I hope you will expand your mind map on the back page when you get a new idea for a journal topic.

So, for next week, let's do another journal entry. You can practice the cursive letters we did on Saturday (2 lines each of e f l h and k in your old notebook), and pages 17 and 18 in the workbook -- all about prefixes. (Nina's an expert because she just worked on these with her Dad, so she can let us know if we've made any mistakes!).

See you on Saturday!
Christie

Homework

We were pretty busy yesterday, weren't we?

In class, we did pages 16, 280 and 281. We also practiced new cursive letters: i, j, t, u, v, and w. Finally, I introduced our journal writing project.

For your homework, let's continue cursive writing practice in our old notebooks (2 lines each of the new letters).

Next, many kids didn't have a chance to write their persuasive paragraphs on page 126, so let's do our best to write that for next time (Ren, you get to take a break from that homework!)

Finally, I'd like you to try writing your first journal entry. Look at the guidelines I gave you for writing, and have fun putting your ideas on paper! If you want to draw a picture about your journal topic, too, I'd love to see it. You can draw it on the back side of the page you write your paragraph on.

Do your best, and I'll see you next week :-)

Homework

Hi guys -- I think I told you clearly about this last class but I'll post it here in case you forgot. You have 3 things to do for homework:

- Write your persuasive paragraph on page 126

- Decorate your new journal (make sure you put your name on it somewhere)

- In your old notebook, practice 2 rows each of the cursive letters (capitals and lower case) that we learned last week.

See you tomorrow!

Homework!

Hi guys --
I told you about this at our last meeting, but just to remind you, you should prepare to write your persuasive paragraph by doing page 125 in the workbook. Use your mind map to help you choose facts, details, and reasons why you think your activity is a really good one. (If you were absent last week, we brainstormed ideas about why we liked a particular activity so that we can write a paragraph that might persuade the reader to try that activity.)

I'm looking forward to seeing your ideas on paper on Saturday!

Christie

Homework for Saturday, June 13

Sorry for the very very very late post -- I think most kidz knew that our homework is supposed to be page 123, but a few members were absent. Sorry for the oversight!! So bring your book with three lovely paragraphs about yourself to class tomorrow! I am looking forward to reading everyone's writing.

Homework for Saturday, June 6

Hi guys! Sophie can't come this Saturday (Dodgeball practice), but I will be there!! I think Doug asked you to have another look at the "Kites" story if you had trouble with the corrections last week. Also, please try pages 46 & 47. See you Saturday!

Christie

Homework for Saturday, May 30

Hi everybody - We Provenzanos can't come this Saturday because of a neighborhood event, but I think it would be great practice for everybody to finish the worksheet we started last week. Remember the editing activity we did about kites? There are 3 more sections to edit -- why don't you try doing those and Doug/Scott can review them with you on Saturday? Remember to watch for capitals, run-on sentences, and punctuation (periods, commas, etc.)

See you soon!
Christie

Homework for Saturday, May 23

Hi everyone --

I have been thinking about your homework. After we read about Edison last week, I thought it might be fun for you to imagine an invention that you might make, BUT I have changed my mind. I would like for us to focus more and more on improving our writing skills, so I would like you to look at pages 118 and 119 to learn about topic sentences before next class. You might want to ask Mom or Dad for help when you do this part. Mom and Dad can help to explain more about topic sentences. (Don't forget to look at the Brain Box on page 118 to see a basic explanation about topic sentences.)

Bring your "maple syrup" topic sentences to class on Saturday.

See you then!

Christie

Homework for Saturday, May 16

Hi guys -- how about some reading? Please try pages 90 and 91. See you Saturday!

Christie

How was your Golden Week? ... HOMEWORK!

Hi everybody --

Well, Golden Week has come and gone, and I think we each did something quite different, so I thought that it would be a good chance for us to do some writing for homework. In your notebook, write a paragraph about something fun (or interesting, or not-so-fun, or WHATEVER) that you did in Golden Week. Write at least 5 sentences. We'll share our stories at the beginning of class. While you write, be careful about capital letters, periods, and spelling.

See you Saturday!

Christie

Homework

It looks like the Provenzanos will be absent on Saturday this week, but I'm still going to ask you to do a little homework! Page 41 has a little word play that you will enjoy. Please try it and then you can share your own puzzle with a friend on Saturday.

Also, page 266 has an interesting activity to help us learn more about the United States. Try to match the states with their shapes on the big map, but if you can't, it's a great chance to use the internet -- you can search for the state capitals on Google.

See you in 2 weeks!

Christie

What are you reading these days?

I was thinking about homework and decided that I'd like to know what you are reading at home recently. In your notebook, write at least 5 sentences about an English book that you are reading now or that you have finished reading recently. You can write anything you like -- explain the story a little, describe your favorite character, explain why you like or don't like the story, etc. Please bring the book with you to class to show everyone while we share our sentences.

See you Saturday!

Christie

Homework

Hi everybody! Well, school is starting again soon and I think we should get back to some good, old-fashioned reading and writing practice! Please do pages 88 and 89 in the Brain Quest book for tomorrow. Bring your books and we will read the story again together in class. I would also like you to do page 117 to follow up what we did 2 weeks ago. Combine the sentences to create a paragraph. (In the book it says "Combine these sentences to create a paragraph describing the picture. Then color the picture." WHAT PICTURE???? If you have time, why don't you DRAW a picture to show what the paragraph describes?)

See you tomorrow!

Christie

Cooking Lesson / Hanami picnic

Hi everyone --
Well, I didn't get organized enough to post any homework before our meeting today, but only 4 kids could attend this week (Sophie, Nina, Maya and Moni), so we all met at the Provenzanos for a cooking extravaganza!

Nina and Maya were the bakers today, and they worked together very well to mix up and bake us some fresh corn bread. Here is the recipe that they read and prepared (Japanese readers, remember that 1 Canadian cup = 250 ml):

CORN BREAD

* 1 1/2 cups cornmeal
* 2 1/2 cups milk
* 2 cups flour
* 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2/3 cup white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil


DIRECTIONS

1. In a small bowl, combine cornmeal and milk; let stand for 5 minutes. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan and line it with baking paper. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Mix in the cornmeal mixture, eggs and oil until smooth (about 5-10 minutes). Pour batter into pan.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Poke a toothpick in the middle to check if it’s done.

Here are the two bakers:

















Sophie and Monica were the soup chefs, and they whipped up a delicious batch of:

Sophie’s Favorite Minestrone Soup

* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 3 cloves garlic, crushed
* 2 onions, chopped
* 2 cups chopped celery
* 2 carrots, diced
* 2 cups chicken broth
* 2 cups water
* 4 cups tomato sauce
* 1/2 cup red wine
* 1 cup canned beans (kidney, black or mixed beans), drained
* 1 cup frozen green beans
* About 1 ½ cups frozen spinach
* 1 teaspoon oregano
* 1 teaspoon basil
* salt and pepper to taste

* 1 cup dry pasta, cooked (penne, macaroni, rotini, etc.)
* 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese for topping

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large pot, over medium-low heat, heat olive oil and saute garlic for 2 to 3 minutes. Add onion and saute for 4 to 5 minutes. Add celery and carrots, saute for 1 to 2 minutes.

2. Add chicken broth, water and tomato sauce, bring to boil, stirring frequently. Add red wine. Reduce heat to low and add kidney beans, oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.

3. When it’s almost ready to serve, add the frozen green beans and spinach to the soup. Simmer gently.

4. Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook until tender. Drain water and set aside.

4. Once pasta is cooked and soup is heated through place 2 tablespoons cooked pasta into bowls. Ladle soup on top of pasta and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.

Here are the sauciers hard at work:





































While the bread baked and the soup simmered, Maya and Nina took care of the washing up , and Sophie and Monica set the table for our hanami lunch.

And finally, we all gathered outside under the cherry tree to have a nice, hot, homemade lunch. It was great!! If you have a chance, please try the recipes yourself -- they were delicious.

Hi from Canada, everybody!
We are pretty busy here, but I thought I would post a few photos of Sophie and Maya and all the SNOW!!

The first night, we got out of the car at Sophie and Maya's Grandma's house and said WOW!!! when we saw all the fresh snow!


First day of school at Barriere Elementary School -- here are Sophie and Maya in front of their Grandma's house, on their way to the school bus stop.

School bus!

Sophie and Maya try cross country skiing for the first time -


Maya turns 7 -- Happy Birthday, Maya! And Moni, too!!

Let us know what's happening in Fukuoka :-)

Homework tomorrow, return books

Hi everyone -
TOO busy!! So I think we'll pass on homework this week. Check through your BrainQuest book and if you have any pages left to do in the math word problems section, please do those. Also the sections we did before -- addition/subtraction and multiplication/division. Check those and finish up any parts that you haven't done.

We haven't had a library table for a long time, and I won't be around to supervise it for the next 2 months or so. Tomorrow, let's just return the books that we borrowed around Christmas time. Don't worry about bringing more to lend this time, just check around your house for any books you have borrowed from the library table and return them.

Ok?!

See you tomorrow!

Homework for January 17

Hi everybody! A couple of homework pages for you -- Nina asked for Math homework, and I wanted to do reading homework, so I have compromised! Please do the math word problems on pages 252, 253, 254 and 255!

See you Saturday -

Christie

Homework for January 9

Hi everybody! As far as I know, everyone is back in the country after winter break. Did you all have a good holiday? I hope we'll see everyone at Kidz Group on Saturday. Big Kidz, I would like you to do a little journal writing to share with us on Saturday. Write in your notebooks about at least 3 things you did during your winter break. I would like you to explain a little about each one, too. For example:

I did a lot of homework.
I played with some friends at Ohori Park.
I went to my Grandma's house on January 1.

These sentences are not enough. I'd like to see something like this:

I had lots of homework to do. I worked on it for about 30 minutes every day, and I finally finished it the day before we went back to school. I didn't mind doing the math, but I didn't like studying kanji characters!

In my free time I did lots of different things. A few times I went to Ohori Park to meet my school friends, which was lots of fun. We spent a lot of time riding our bikes and we played soccer, too.

On January 1 my Mom, Dad, sister and I went to Kumamoto to see my Grandma. She lives in a big, old house. It was really cold! But Grandma is good at cooking, and we had lots of good food while we were there.

See you Saturday!

Mochi Tsuki at the farm

Happy New Year everyone! With many of our members away for the holidays I was worried we wouldn't have enough rice pounders at the farm, but Richie, Jojo, Sophie, Maya, and Hide-san's kids and cousins did a great job! Here are some pictures of the big day...

There was LOTS of mochi to enjoy -- we had it with sweetened soy sauce, with grated daikon and soy sauce, or just plain!