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Oldie but Goodie Link-up!

Here is my oldie!

Looking for a fun way to review letter order with your little ones?
These worksheets are great way to do it! There are several different levels and three different styles for you to use with your students or child at home.  

 

Quinoa Pancakes with Berry Sauce and Cinnamon Coffee

Today is another snow day! We got a foot of snow last night! Now, as an upstate New York gal, a foot is nothing, however it is a huge deal in Virginia! The police are asking that everyone stay off the roads and everything is shut down. In NY we still went to school when there was three feet of snow! I do realize that Virginia is not as equipped to handle this much snow, however I still get a little chuckle out of it. The kids here must be thrilled. I know my Florida born husband is :)

I decided it was the perfect day to make quinoa pancakes smothered in berry sauce and some cinnamon coffee. I love these pancakes because they are pretty healthy for a pancake. I love that I have a recipe I can feel good about serving my children :) If you have not jumped on the quinoa bandwagon yet, now is a great time to do it! I grew up eating quinoa, but have just recently began to explore new recipes using it. I eat it for breakfast with yogurt and throw it in soups, as well as pancakes! It adds a bit of protein which is awesome. You can read more about quinoa here.

Cinnamon Coffee ~ simple and delicious. Just add a dash of cinnamon to your ground coffee before brewing. This morning I added a dash of nutmeg too! 

Quinoa Pancakes
3/4 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
1 cup COOKED quinoa (I used red in this recipe but you can use any color quinoa)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1-2 Tbs sugar (white or brown - I like brown)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt (I like to use greek plain or vanilla - you could get crazy and add a flavored yogurt!)
1 Tbs milk or water

Mix all the dry ingredients then add the quinoa. Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl then add to the dry. Stir until combined but do not over mix. Cook as you would "regular" pancakes and top with berry sauce. See recipe below.

Cooked red quinoa

Flip when you see bubbles on the sides and top of the pancakes

Mmm delicious!

Berry Sauce

2 cups frozen berries (I used mixed berries)

1/2 cup water + 1 Tbs 

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 tsp cornstarch

Put berries, 1/2 cup water and maple syrup in a sauce pan. Turn on medium. Mix together the cornstarch and 1 Tbs water. When the berry mixture is boiling add the cornstarch mixture and stir vigorously to avoid lumps. Allow to thicken slightly then take off the heat. Pour over your golden pancakes and enjoy!!

I hope you enjoy these pancakes as much as my family and I do! 

I'd love to hear how you use quinoa in your cooking and baking :)

Back to the Basics ~ Inexpensive Early Literacy Ideas

When I first started teaching I couldn't believe how expensive it was to set up my classroom! Now, it didn't really have to be, however I just had to get fabric to cover my bulletin boards (it's to much prettier and it's good for the environment!), buy rugs and pillows for my reading corner, get cute posters with inspiring pictures and quotes... you know. Kindergarten requires so much cute, educational stuff! To make matters worse, I began my Kindergarten teaching career in Tampa, Florida. Do you know what is located in Tampa? A Lakeshore Learning store. An actual store where you can go and pick things up and look at them! Aah, the excitement of setting up a classroom :) I do so love it!
                                                                                                                                                           

Anyway, I am always looking for fun, inexpensive ways to get my kids excited and learning at the same time. I was reminded of how simple these things can be while I was home for Christmas.
Little Bean has some beautiful wooden toys, Indestructables books, etc, but two of the most interesting things to him were a clementine and a large mouth canning ring. That reminded me of some of the simple, everyday items that my kids loved to use in my classroom, so I thought I'd share them with you! Hope they inspire you!

First off ~ buttons! I loved playing with my grandmother's tin of buttons when I was a little girl. My sister and I would happily sit and sort buttons for quite while (my brother had no interest!). I bought these buttons in the dollar section at Michaels.

Sort by color...

sort by size...

To make this fine motor activity, I made a game out of it and had my students use tweezers or spoons to pick up the buttons - no fingers allowed! 

I just love these wooden beads! I got them at Walmart for $3.99 a bag when I first started teaching. They last forever! I have also had the kids stick them onto a pipe cleaner to spell sight words or search for them in a ball of play dough.

Super cheap and easy! A pack of 100 clothespins is $1.00 at Walmart (or at least it used to be...). I had my students match uppercase to lowercase.

Magnetic fridge letters, an ice cube tray and the same clothespins used in the above game. Again I have the kids match uppercase to lowercase.

Last but certainly not least, a cookie sheet and magnetic fridge letters. Not only does the cookie sheet keep the letters from going everywhere, but it gives the students their own defined space. As the year progressed I would switch to using words from a magnetic poetry kit I got in college. A lot of those kits have inappropriate words for young ones, so check carefully if you use them!

I hope you have enjoyed these ideas! Please share if you feel as though they would help a teacher you know. These are also great activities to do at home with your own little ones :)

Five for Friday!

This is my first time linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching Blog for Five for Friday! I am excited to be sharing with you! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have enjoyed reading other's Five for Friday posts :)

Number 1: Cold Weather!

Our week started off COLD! It was not nearly as cold here as it was for many others, but 15 degrees is still pretty cold! I found ice on the INSIDE of our kitchen window when I got up to make coffee. 

Number 2: Mirror Mirror

Little Bean is loving tummy time and sitting up to play these days. He also loves looking at himself in the mirror, so I made him a mirror using our bathroom hand mirror and some cardboard. Don't worry, he doesn't touch it unless I'm right there :) He loves watching himself do pushups and gets so excited to see the "other" baby!

Number 3: Green Cleaning

I have wanted to try making my own cleaning products for a while now and finally got around to it! I used different combinations of baking soda, dish soap, vinegar and water. 

It worked GREAT!!! My favorite was how easy it was to clean splattered, dried, spaghetti sauce off the inside of the microwave. 

Mix 1/4 cup vinegar and 1 cup water then put in the microwave on high for 2 min. It steams off the gunk and all I had to do was wipe it out with a paper towel!!! Awesome :) 

Blog post with more of the recipes I used to be posted soon. 

Number 4: MLK Product {Coming Soon!}

I have been working on an MLK Product for a couple days now and am hoping to finish it up and get it posted by tomorrow! We'll see if the babe decides to nap today... ;) He's been boycotting them this week!

Here's a glimpse at one of the pages.

Number 5: Walk at the Beach

After driving home for the holidays our car was due for an oil change, so I took it in this morning. The shop where I take it is within walking distance of the beach, so Little Bean and I went for a stroll along the boardwalk while we waited. Remember how we started the week at 15 degrees? Well today it's in the 60's and tomorrow high of 71!! Crazy weather!

Happy Friday!! Thanks for reading :)

Salt Dough Ornament Fun!

Aaah the holiday season! One of my favorite times of the year. I love all the holiday drinks at Starbucks, Christmas music, the smell of cinnamon and pine, the twinkling of lights on the tree. This is the first year in a long time that I don't have a class of little ones who are bouncing around the classroom, barely able to sit through one story or math lesson. While I don't have a class to make cinnamon dough ornaments with, I do have my own precious little one! I thought it would be fun to make some handprint ornaments for the grandparents. So, a few girl friends and I got together with our little ones and attempted to make some ornaments - ha! Have I mentioned that all our little ones are younger than 6 months?! It took several times but we finally got some good ones. It was quite an experience! We decided that cinnamon dough was probably not the best idea since they have their hands in their mouths constantly these days, and we didn't want any lingering cinnamon to burn their little tongues. One of my friends, who also used to make ornaments with her class, suggested a salt dough that she has used in the past. It is quick and easy to make and produces a wonderfully smooth dough for little hands. 

The original recipe comes from Olive Juice Mama. It's a great blog!

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup warm water

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until a ball forms. Sprinkle a little flour on the counter to knead the dough on. While you don't technically have to knead it for 10 minutes, it makes the dough wonderfully smooth if you do and bakes up much nicer :) Plus, it's good exercise so go for it! Once the dough is kneaded, roll it out to about 1/2" thick. I was able to make 6 handprints (my little guy is 4.5 months old). I made 5 and then had to re-roll out the dough for the 6th. 

Bake at 200 for 3 hours, then flip them upside down and bake for another hour. I baked mine in the toaster oven to save a little money on electricity :) Once they were cool I painted them with acrylic paint, used a marker to write my little one's name and the year, and  added some ribbon. Gifts for the grandparents complete!

Blog Hop and Giveaway!!

Welcome to my blog!                  I am so  excited to be participating in this Blog Hop! 

Thank you to Jessica from Hanging out in First for setting it all up!!

We are celebrating all that we are thankful for and that includes teachers.  We want to show all of you how much we appreciate you.  Teachers do so much and this is our time to give back and say thank you!  Thank you for showing your support by following our blogs and/or stores!  Thank you for all the hard work you do, for collaborating and for sharing!  Thank you, thank you, thank you from all of us participating in this hop :)
             You have made it to blog

           Grab my FREEBIE here       

 I have created a Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Center Multi Pack. The worksheets are designed to be fun and festive while still promoting learning! Click on the image to head on over to my TpT store to grab it. I would love some feed back on what you think!

Join us by hopping through each blog and gathering lots of Thanksgiving and autumn freebies.  In each freebie you will find a picture of a pie with a word on it. That word will tell you something that teacher is thankful for.  Record all of the words on your recording sheet and follow each blog along the way so that you can enter the amazing giveaway at the end!

You may start anywhere along the hop, but if you would like to start at the beginning you may go here.  This is also where you will go in the end, for the giveaway!!

Now hop over to the next stop on your journey:

Quick and Easy Play Dough Recipes for the Classroom or Home

I have fond memories of my mother making play dough for us when we were young. She made us the cooked kind, and I remember thinking that it took FOREVER to cool enough to play with :)  When I started teaching I began making play dough for my class. Making your own play dough is much cheaper, can be made in large batches and lasts longer than what you buy at the store. It can also be jazzed up in fun ways! When I taught preschool, we actually had the parents sign up to make us new play dough every month, as we went through it pretty quickly in our preschool classroom. I did not make it that often for my Kindergarten class. 

The first recipe is for cooked play dough. Despite what many think, cooked play dough is not a scary thing! Yes, your pan and spoon look terrible afterwards, but 10 minutes of soaking takes care of it. I have found that cooked play dough lasts a little bit longer and is smoother than the uncooked version. 

Recipe for Cooked Play Dough
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
1 TBS oil (see notes)
2 tsp cream of tartar (see notes at the bottom)
Food coloring or powdered drink mix (such as Kool-Aid)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium sized sauce pan. Add the water and oil (and food coloring if not using the powdered drink mix) and stir them together. Stir continuously on medium heat, making sure to move your spoon around the entire bottom of the pan. As you can see above, the mixture begins to thicken quickly on the bottom of the pan. Continue to stir until the mixture has formed a ball in the center of the pan. Carefully pinch the dough to make sure it isn't too sticky, then carefully remove and place on a plate or tin foil to cool. 

I used powdered drink mix in the recipe above. I used Kroger brand powdered drink mix in place of Kool-Aid in the recipe above. It produced a wonderful, bright red and the play dough smells like cherries!

Recipe for Un-Cooked Play Dough

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
1 TBS oil 
2 tsp cream of tartar 
Food coloring or powdered drink mix (such as Kool-Aid)

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add the water and oil (and food coloring if not using the powdered drink mix) to 1/2 of the dry ingredients and stir them together. Stir in the second half of the dry ingredients. You may find that you need to add a dash more flour. Once it has formed a ball, as shown above, dust the counter and knead the dough until it is smooth. 
For the uncooked version I used neon blue food coloring. I prefer the neon colors as they are much brighter than the regular pack of colors. 

Store in zip lock bags.

As I mentioned above, one of the best things about making your own play dough is that you can jazz it up. I like to add some extract, such as peppermint, cinnamon or lemon. You can also add glitter, which my students have always gone crazy over! Have fun with it! I hope your students and or children enjoy playing with the play dough you make :)

Both of these versions make great dough for your kids to play with. The cooked version is a little smoother than the uncooked, but the kids don't care a bit about that. The cooked version does last a little longer. I used play dough in my Literacy Centers every few weeks and only made it three times during the school year. 

***Notes***

* I like to use baby oil instead of vegetable oil - it makes the play dough very smooth and it smells good! 

*Cream of tartar is NOT the same thing as tartar sauce!! Cream of tartar is a white powder that can be found in the spice aisle of the grocery store. It is not necessary for the recipe to work, however it helps the play dough to last a little longer. 

The Amazing Spaghetti Squash

Now that Fall is upon us once more, winter squash has taken over the vegetable section at the grocery store. I love acorn, butternut and delicata squash, however my husband does not. I therefore do not often buy it. For a while now I have been hearing about how great spaghetti squash is, but had not thought too much about it, thinking that it was probably on the sweeter side and that it wouldn't go over so well at dinner. Oh yeah, have I mentioned my husband is Italian?

I finally bought one a few weeks ago and gave it a shot, telling him several times that it was fine if he didn't like it and that he could eat the left over Thai food if he just couldn't choke it down. Well... it was AMAZING!! We both loved it so much that we had it for lunch the next day and he has requested it several times since. In fact we just had it again last evening. One of the best things about spaghetti squash is that you get that nice, satisfying taste of spaghetti but without the heavy feeling and tiredness that a full bowl of pasta can bring on.

So, even if it sounds crazy to substitute a squash in place of your beloved pasta, just give it a try anyway; you may be pleasantly surprised. If my Italian, pasta loving husband loves it so much, chances are good you may too. And if you're worried about it being a total failure, than have a back up frozen pizza on hand that you can bake in 15 minutes :)

Here is how I make it.

Preheat the oven to 350.

 (See the bottom for an alternative cooking method)

I look for a squash that has a nice yellow color to it and that feels heavy for it's size. A medium sized squash makes enough for us to have dinner and lunch for the next day.

Wash the squash and poke a few holes in it. I use the tip of a sharp knife and poke about 8 holes.

Set the squash on a tray covered in foil (this just makes for easier cleanup) and place it in the center of the oven. Set the timer for 30 min. After 30 min flip the squash over and set the timer for another 30 min. Flipping the squash helps it to cook evenly all the way through. I did not do this the first time and there was a big squishy spot on the bottom where it had rested on the pan for an hour.

Let the squash cool for about 5 minutes then cut in half. Remove the seeds, then use a fork to gently pull apart the strands of the squash. They look just like noodles!! It's pretty cool :)

We like our spaghetti squash with red sauce (I like to get Newman's Own - it's delicious and all their proceeds go to charity), turkey meatballs and some parmesan cheese.

           Buon appetito :)

 I hope your family loves this meal as much as mine does!

**You can also cut the squash into quarters and and steam it for about 10 minutes**

Homemade Baby Wipes - Not just for babies!

While I was growing up, we always had a job wheel/chart both at school and at home. At home we often complained about doing our chores, however at school having a job/chore each week made us feel important. This did not prevent us from sweeping the dirt under the carpet, however. Imagine our surprise when we came in one Monday to find the carpet gone! Haha. 

Anyway, when I became a teacher I made sure that every child had a job each week instead of every other week. One of those jobs has always been Table Washer. Since the little guys can't use Lysol wipes (they were actually banned at my school), I have always asked for baby wipes. The baby wipes come in handy after cupcakes and craft projects too! 

Now that I have a little one of my own, I have started making my own baby wipes. One, it is WAY cheaper and two, it is better for his bum :) I got to thinking and realized this would be a great way to save money in the classroom as well! 

So, after asking several girlfriends for recipes and looking up a few recipes online, I combined several and settled on this simple recipe that has worked quite well so far. Here it is!

What you will need:
1 roll paper towels (I use Viva because they are thick and soft and hold up really well)
A large knife (I use an old one that I don't really use for cooking anymore)
Measuring spoons and cup
Container with lid
Coconut oil 
Baby soap
Water
Zip lock bag (gallon size)

I have found that if you buy a single roll it has more paper towels on it than do the rolls that come in the multi packs. So, I have played around and adjusted the recipe to fit both size rolls. You are welcome to adjust it as you see fit!

Recipe (if you purchase a single roll then double this recipe) :
2 cups hot water
2 TBS coconut oil
2 TBS baby wash

Use the knife to cut  the paper towel roll in half. I've found that a flat blade works better than a serrated blade, as the serrated blade rips the paper towels and causes a bunch of fuzz. Place each half in a container. Mix the hot water, coconut oil and baby wash together. I use hot water so the coconut oil melts (if you keep your house very warm than it will stay melted all the time). 

Pour 1 cup over the tops of the rolls (1/2 cup per each roll). Pour slowly or it splashes all over - I know this from experience. Wait about 10 min and flip the rolls over. Pour the remaining mixture over the tops (1/2 cup per each roll). Wait about another 10 min or so and they will look like the photo on the left. Pull out the cardboard pieces (photo on the right). 

Pull the paper towels out of the center and voila! Homemade baby/classroom wipes :) I tried putting them both in the same container, as shown above, however the container was a little too small and I couldn't pull the wipes out, so I put one roll in a zip lock bag until I needed it. I make these as I need them, as I have found that they will mold if kept for longer than three weeks. Keep a lid over the top (I don't snap it on, just set it on top) or the wipes dry out. 

For Classroom Use

I would suggest eliminating the coconut oil from the recipe if you are going to make these for your classroom. You don't want the tables getting greasy. These are super easy and pretty fast to make. You could have a few parents donate paper towels and the baby wash and either make them yourself or ask a parent volunteer to make them for you. 

I hope you've found this post helpful whether you're a mom, a teacher or both!