I Know A Wee Piggy

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As a teacher, I love getting new books for my classroom. I especially love getting new, free books for my classroom. There are so many great books out there (and I am very partial to my favorites) so it's sometimes hard to branch out and spend money on new books that might not be as "good". Upon receiving some free books (ordered with bonus points) from my classroom's latest Scholastic book order, I came across a book that is sure to be added to "my favorites" list; I Know A Wee Piggy written by Kim Norman and illustrated by Henry Cole.

First let me start by saying, I was drawn to purchasing this book solely on the fact that it was illustrated by Henry Cole. I am drawn to Cole's childlike illustrations and bright colors like a moth to my front porch light. I know they say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but I just can't help myself when it comes to Henry Cole. Perhaps it's because I've seen him in the flesh on two occasions and he used to be a regular teacher like me. Or maybe that's just why his name sticks in my head when I see it on the front cover of a book. Either way I think his illustrations are fabulous and chances are if he's illustrated a book, then I'll definitely read it. And usually I'll like it too.

If you've read any of my other book reviews, you might know that I'm a little bit partial to the story, "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" because it reminds me of my Granny. I Know A Wee Piggy has the same cadence but tells the story of a little piggy at a county fair. This little piggy is somewhat of a mischief maker as he "wallows" in different colors all over the fair. I Know A Wee Piggy would make an excellent addition to any farm, color or rhyming unit in the younger grades. It would also be a fun vocabulary read aloud for upper grades. I love the use of the word wallowed.  Perfect for all ages, you'll definitely want to add this book to your children's book collection!

Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats

I rarely make Rice Krispies Treats. I'm not sure why, they are easy to make and require less than 5 ingredients. They are also pretty delicious; I almost forget how yummy they are until I actually eat a homemade treat. And the only good ones are in fact the homemade ones. The prepackaged Treats taste nothing like a fresh homemade Rice Krispies Treat. They must not be made with the same butter and melted marshmallows that I use. But back to why I never make them. They have no nutritional value, I hate to break it to you, but rice cereal, butter and marshmallows will never be a healthy balanced meal. But then again, my weekly cookies aren't healthy either, so that must not be the reason. Everything in moderation right? Perhaps it's the sticky mess that melting marshmallows makes in the saucepan after cooking that doesn't put Rice Krispies Treats at the top of my "want to bake" list?

Despite my Rice Krispies Treat reluctance, when I saw a picture of Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats as I was scrolling through my Pinterest feed, I thought, "These would be a fun treat for the kids." Do you think that I pinned the recipe? Of course not. And when I went back to try to find them, I couldn't remember the exact ones and all of the recipes were a little bit different and none exactly like I wanted. Hmmm. So I just googled Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats and used the recipe from Food.com, well, mostly. I had to make a few changes, of course.

First, I gathered my ingredients.

You need Rice Krispies cereal, yellow or white cake mix (I used Funfetti, because I just couldn't resist), mini-marshmallows (I used jumbo jet puffed because that's what we had--it all melts the same), butter, and sprinkles.

I melted one 16 oz bag of jumbo Jet-Puffed marshmallows with four tablespoons of butter (1/2 stick). The actual recipe called for one 10 oz bag of mini-marshmallows, but I wasn't about to try to figure out trying to use a partial bag. In my defense, I do teach kindergarten, so that kind of math would really require a lot of time and brain power for me. Half of the bag would have been 8 oz and I would need another 2 oz from the leftover half so I'd divide what was left into fourths and only use 1/4 of that half of the bag. Okay, I'll stop. You get my point. The recipe also called for 3 tablespoons of butter now that I'm being honest, but I had an almost full half stick in the fridge and I didn't want the extra tablespoon I was about to shave off to get lonely.

So, one 16 oz bag of jumbo marshmallows and four tablespoons of butter melting in a saucepan over medium heat.

When the marshmallows were mostly melted, I stirred in 1/2 cup of Funfetti cake batter into the butter/marshmallow mixture.

Next, I shook in some sprinkles and gave the mixture a quick stir.

Before, the sprinkles started melting too, I cut off the heat and added 6 cups of Rice Krispie cereal. The recipe called for 5 cups, but I had more marshmallow and butter, so I thought more Krispies would be needed.

Mmmmm...then I dumped the mixture from the pan into a butter greased cake pan. You'll want to grease the pan or you'll never get the treats out later. You could use cooking spray, but I no longer use cooking spray, so butter it was. Then I used parchment paper to press them down flat into the pan. You'll want to use parchment so that your fingers don't become a sticky mess.

Then comes a light smattering of sprinkles on top before letting them sit to cool.

After cooling, about 30 minutes, cut and enjoy. This is a treat that everyone in your family will enjoy!

Homemade Gelatin Hearts

I typically avoid Jell-O. There is pretty much nothing natural about it from it's color (obtained by dyes) to the artificial flavors. Not to mention the fact that the first ingredient is the dreaded sugar. Now, before you think I'm getting on a soapbox, let me just say that my children consume PLENTY of sugar. I also have about 4 boxes of Jell-O in my pantry at this very moment. It's just that I'm not a huge fan of the wiggly stuff and I can probably count on one hand how many times I've made it since my son has been born. Jigglers look fun and around Halloween I even tried to make pumpkin shaped molds out of orange Jell-O, but I couldn't get the little jack-o-lantern faces out of the molds without breaking them into a million pieces. Therefore, I proclaim that Jell-O and I are not friends.

However, while flipping through the February 2015 issue of Parents Magazine, I came across a recipe for "Jellie Hearts" made of fruit juice, gelatin, and vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt. My first thought was, what, you can make Jell-O without a box of Jell-O? Yes, I know, duh, of course you can. What rock have I been living under? Then I thought, wow, I bet my kids would love this. And I was completely right!

Making Homemade Gelatin Hearts is really easy! That's the best kind of recipe right? Three ingredients, a few simple steps and smiling kiddos. All you need is fruit juice, gelatin packets and vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt.

I also used, olive oil, a heart shaped cookie cutter, a saucepan, a glass dish, one large measuring cup and one small measuring cup.

First, I used a paper towel to put a thin coating of olive oil on the glass baking dish. The recipe actually called for a quick coating of cooking spray, but I no longer use cooking spray for reasons that could take up another whole post. Plus what did people do before cooking spray was invented? When I was a little girl, I remember greasing pans with Crisco on a paper towel. So trust me when I say, cooking spray is really not necessary. But use it if you must.

Then stir two gelatin packets into 1 cup of fruit juice. The recipe didn't specify a type of juice, so I picked a red colored juice and I knew my almost three year old daughter wouldn't touch the tartness of cranberry juice. I used Cherry juice, but if you read the label it's actually a blend of apple, pear and cherry, so I thought it would be sweet enough.

In a small saucepan, heat 2 more cups of juice on low heat until it is hot.

Next, turn off the heat and stir in the gelatin mixture. If you don't want to add the Greek yogurt, you can then pour your mixture straight into your lightly greased 8 x 8 glass dish, but I wanted a little more protein in my snack. I transferred my juice/gelatin mixture back to my large measuring cup and let it cool for about 5 minutes.

Next, measure out 1/2 cup of Vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt.

After your mixture cools slightly, then whisk in yogurt.

It changed the color of juice to a not-so-pretty shade of pink, but I think I was the only one who really noticed or cared about that. Then I poured the gelatin mixture into my glass dish.

After placing the glass dish in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, they are ready to cut! (You can also leave them overnight if you want to prep them at night for a lunchtime snack). We had ours as an after dinner dessert.

Next, I rubbed my heart-shaped cookie cutter with olive oil and cut out the gelatin hearts.

Lastly, I carefully removed the gelatin hearts from the dish using a spatula. My cookie cutter was rather large so we only made 4, but my son and daughter enjoyed eating the scraps just as much as the hearts.

I will definitely be using this recipe for other holidays and fun treats using different colored juices and other shaped cookie cutters. Homemade gelatin is a fun, easy, different kind of snack!

How Many is 100?

Although it feels like we will never get here (with all the snow days we've been having lately), the 100th day of school is just around the corner. We started school in mid-August, so if you started after Labor Day, don't worry you'll be there before you know it. I know, some of you are thinking, big deal, it's not the end of the school year or anything (although every year I have one or two little kindergarteners that think they'll be moving on to 1st grade on day 101). But in all seriousness, the 100th day of Kindergarten is a big, hairy deal. One of our Virginia State Standards and a Common Core Standard in Kindergarten is to count by 1s and 10s to 100.

Each day of Kindergarten begins with a 10-15 minute calendar lesson, which includes counting the days of school. When we get to day 100, we celebrate all we've learned so far during the school year, especially counting to 100. We've been studying the hundreds chart and learning about number patterns for skip counting by 5s and 10s in math for the past couple of weeks, so for practice, we send home an assignment for each Kindergartener to bring in collection of 100 of the same small item in a quart sized Ziploc bag labeled with his/her name. On the 100th Day of School each child shares his/her 100 items with the class and we compare what different collections of 100 items look like. Students usually bring in small items such as marshmallows, pennies, macaroni noodles, etc. This year since my son is in Kindergarten, I was on the at-home side of this project. So, I thought, I'd share how I got him to count a collection 100 Lego's.

First of all, not all students can count to 100 by this point in the year. Yes, we've been counting the days of school since the beginning of the year, and many students are able to count to 100. However, we all learn in different ways and at different rates, so some of my students are just not there yet. It's also really hard for a 5 or 6 year old to count 100 objects without losing track. Most kiddos at this point have 1-1 correspondence with counting objects to 20 and those that can count to 100 are rote counting (counting based on memorization through repeated practice). All students can at least count to 10 and 10 is an easy number to keep up with, therefore, when trying to count 100 objects, I strongly recommend grouping objects by 10s to count them. Also, it's easiest to get little ones to group objects when they have a defined space. So, before I had my son start counting, I counted out 100 Lego's myself and placed them in a small plastic container.

Next, I drew 10 circles on a large sheet of easel paper, since 10 groups of 10 is 100. The circles provided him with clear boundaries for each group.

Then, I gave the hard work to my son. I told him we had to count out 100 Lego's for his homework project. So, I said, "We are going to make this easy by counting to 100 by 10s. Can you count and put 10 Lego's in each circle?" He counted out 10 Lego's for the first circle, then being the 5-year-old boy that he is, my son said, "So, do I just put a handful in each one?" I guess he thought this was going to be too time consuming for him, so he would try to figure out a short cut. I told him we had to have exactly 100 and although he could put a "handful" in each circle, he was going to have to count to make sure that he had 10 in each circle. He dutifully put a small handful in each circle and then touched and counted each Lego to make sure he had 10 before moving on to the next circle.

After, he finished filling in all of the 10 circles with 10 Lego's, I asked my son to go back and count by 10's to make sure we had 100. Of course, he perfectly touched and counted each group by 10s to 100. "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100."

Then, I pulled out the quart sized Ziploc baggie and told him we have to double check our answer and count each handful of 10 as we place it in the bag.

Another, perfect count. We definitely have 100 Lego's in our bag. My son and my students will be comparing collections of 100 items at school, so if you are completing this activity at home, I highly recommend counting 100 of 2-3 items and placing them in containers that are the same, so that you can compare what 100 looks like. For example, 100 Lego's looks much different than 100 grains of rice. This also helps your little one not only practice skip counting, but you're also activating other skills that will help with estimation and comparing sizes and numbers in the future.

Happy counting!