Summer Cooking with Your Little Ones

As everyone might suspect summer time is great but also extremely hot. Here are a few treats to help you cool down with your little ones.

 

Popsicles

Ingredients:

Pineapple juice

Grape juice (or any juice of your choice)

Craft sticks

Small paper cups

Directions: If frozen juice is used, mix according to the directions on the can. Fill the paper cups 3/4 full of juice. Place the cups in the freezer. When the juice begins to freeze, insert a craft stick in the middle of each cup. When frozen, peel away the paper cup and serve.

Watermelon Popsicles

Ingredients:

Watermelon

Crafts sticks

Small paper cups

Directions: Remove the seeds and the rind from the watermelon. Puree the melon in a blender. Fill the paper cups 3/4 full of juice. Place the cups in the freezer. When the juice begins to freeze, insert a craft stick in the middle of each cup. When frozen, peel away the paper cup and serve.

Zippy Drink

Ingredients:

2 ripe bananas

2 cups orange juice

2 cups orange sherbet

Ice cubes

Orange slices

Directions: Peel the bananas, place in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add orange juice and sherbet and beat with a hand mixer or whisk until smooth. Pour into a pitcher; add ice cubes, and orange slices. Serve and enjoy!

Sand Dollar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 cup oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

4-1/4 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Dried fruit bits or sunflower seeds

Directions: Cream butter, oil, sugar, salt, baking soda, cream of tartar. Add in eggs. Slowly add in flour. Make balls and press into cookies. Place 5 sunflower seeds and/or pieces of dried fruit in middle of cookie to resemble a sand dollar. Bake 8-10 minutes in 350 degree oven.

Who Took the Cookie?

I had another ideal in the middle of the night, so I had to get it out of my head and on to paper! In September I am introducing the letters A, C, M, T and focusing on these letters the entire month. One of the books I am using is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I thought why not tie the "cookie" theme together with a whole/small group activity reinforcing name recognition in print. I took an adaptation to the chant, "Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?" Below is the information about the printable which can be purchased from my Teacher Pay Teachers Store.

Who Took the Cookie? Activity Packet

Who Took the Cookie? Is based on the game, who took the cookies from the cookie jar. I am using the activity in both large group and small group for name recognition and print concepts.

You could also use the activity for the following:

• Sight Word recognition
  
• Letter recognition
• Reading directionality
• Counting words in a sentence
• Counting letters in a word
• Listening and following spoken directions to name a few.

The packet contains the following:

• Cookie Jar Chart with the words to, who took the cookie? Finished size: 17” x 33”
• Editable Individual Cookies for students’ names.

Directions:

• It is suggested to print all pieces on card stock and laminate for durability. To attach the cookie names to the chart use the Velcro dots. 
• The Cookie Jar chart is tiled over (8) pages with a 1/8” overlap. To assemble cut, along image’s black line. When all pieces have been cut out, simply lay the corresponding piece a 1/4” over until print edges match. Finished size: 17” x 33”
• I also have included The Cookie Jar chart as one piece measuring 17” x 33” on page 12 for those of you who would like to take it to a print shop or Sams Club also offers large format printing at a reasonable price.
•  The individual cookies for students’ names are (6) to a page and can be printed (2) ways. I created an Adobe Form for the individual cookies where you can type the name of your student directly on the cookie. The form is set up to AUTO so it will shrink large names to fit on the cookie. The second way is to simply print the individual cookie names onto card stock, write individual students’ names, and then laminate for durability.

DOWNLOAD>> Who Took the Cookie? Activity Packet

Let me know what you think! Is it good, can it be approved upon? Comments, suggestions, likes and dislikes are always welcomed.

Blog Overhaul

I have worked pretty much the entire day and into the wee hours of the morning giving my blog a much needed overhaul. My son has come in the room several times to say enough is enough. Yet, I'm the type that has to get the creative idea out of my head and in to production. If not, then I lay awake tossing and turning.

I decided to take on the challenge of overhauling my entire blog because, I wanted a more polished theme that went with both my personality and my blog topic. So, like everyone else I ‘Googled it’ to find a FREE blogger template that was just right. A blogger template that was not too small, nor too big, but the perfect one. I found one that I like as you can see. With some minor tweaking I am pleasantly pleased with the outcome. The only thing I wish I could change is the columns’ width. I have so much information that I needed three columns, but the drawback is the width of the actual "post" column. I'll keep tweaking with the code until I find the perfect match.

Take a look at the changes and use the comment box to let me know how you feel, good or bad!