Pumpkin Earthquake Cake

I saw a video for this pumpkin cake and decided to give it a try. (https://thebestcakerecipes.com/pumpkin-spice-earthquake-cake/) It is absolutely delicious! 

Ingredients:

1 Spice Cake mix

3 eggs

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup oil

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Cheesecake mixture

1 8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup butter (melted

3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray. Mix the spice cake, eggs, pumpkin, water, oil, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice with a hand mixer until well combined. Pour in the 9x13 inch pan.

In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar until smooth. Drop spoonfuls on top of the cake batter mixture. Swirl the cream cheese mixture into the cake with a butter knife.

Add the chocolate chips on top. 

Bake for about 50 minutes. 

Cool and cut. Store in the refrigerator. 

First Day of School Kindness Activity

A former student sent me a story of a teacher asking her students to write something nice about every student in their class. This student thought it was a great idea, wished she would have done something like this when she was in school, and thought if anyone would do it for students it would be me. So, I decided to turn the story into my first day of school assignment for my juniors.

The assignment: Write something nice about every student in your hour. I gave the students a class list. They created a Google Doc and wrote down a statement about every person on the list.  They also knew that the person receiving the messages would have no idea who wrote that message about them. In the end, each student would receive a list of about 30 things their classmates said about them. (I did this for all three sections of my junior English classes.)

I am a firm believer in never asking the students to do something that I haven't done myself, so I did the assignment as well to provide an example. I explained to the students that I am not "friends" with every teacher in our school, but I can say something nice about everyone. We had some great discussions about empathy and kindness and how powerful receiving a list like this could be for a person.

The process of getting all of the comments to an individual person took a great amount of time, but I learned so much through the process. 

1. I learned, when given the opportunity, teenagers can be very caring and really share extremely nice things about others. (We often think about them only sharing negative things when they hide "behind the screen".) And, even when their comments are anonymous to one another, they can really share uplifting things about everyone. (And if there was a comment that I thought might be taken the wrong way, I simply deleted it and moved on. No one will ever know what was deleted.) 

2. This process taught me a lot about my new students. I learned things that particular students really enjoy based on the comments from their peers. (Things I now can use as a conversation starter with them to build relationships.)

3. The kids really do notice each other. (Even if they don't hang out in the same social circle.) 

4. The students were very curious to see what their list said. They all want to have nice things said about them and to get some verification that they are doing something right. This assignment did that for every single kid. Trust me, I saw the lists! 

The process. I copied and pasted every single comment that was turned in to one document (What you see below. Each of the blacked out sections is a different student's name). Then I created a separate doc for every student (see the tabs at the top of the picture!). I went through and copied and pasted each comment to the individual student's doc. When I was finished (literally hours later), I shared each document with that individual student. Doing it this way was important to me because I didn't want any student to have any idea who said what. I also didn't want students to have to feel like they had to share their list with anyone in the class if I passed it back to them in a hard copy. They got an email late at night on the weekend and could read it on their own time. 

Cooking Classes Enhance Education

"What happened to home ec?" seems to be a question trending in society. And this isn't just a question being asked by older generations: students have asked me this question every year for the past 14 years I have been in education. While I know school finances leave very little opportunity for home ec in a school curriculum, I know it's something we should still strive to bring to our students.

I have done many things over the course of my career to share my love of cooking and baking with my students, but I never really felt like I was giving them the confidence to be able to go out and do it on their own.

This summer, the ultimate opportunity came into view. The district librarian and I were talking about ways to get the local high school students to go to the Sandusky District Library and utilize the great programs they offer. After realizing there was a stove and refrigerator in the library community room, I immediately offered my services to bring a summer cooking class to the library. The 20 spots quickly filled up and a 4-week cooking class was brought to life. Students cut and cleaned chicken, kneaded dough, practiced measuring, made grocery lists, went shopping, and did various other things without hesitation. The laughter and confidence that could be seen and heard in this room were contagious.  

I have never had a more rewarding experience in my educational career. Plus, I know that building relationships with students is key to building successful classrooms. The kids from the class are coming up to me to share their cooking experiences at home and parents are reaching out to express their gratitude for helping their child gain confidence in the kitchen. This cooking class opportunity has given me the chance to connect with future and current students and has allowed me to grow as an educator. 

One of my strongest goals in education is to create experiences for students that carry their learning beyond the classroom to life. What I have learned most through this process is, as an educator, I must get creative and think outside of the box just as I encourage my own students with their thinking. If I believe a skill is important for my students to learn, I have to find ways to get them that knowledge, even if it means cooking in a library. If you are an educator reading this, I encourage you to do the same thing. You will not be disappointed in the results. Kids deserve it!  

Aladdin Movie/Craft Night

The kids found a craft book for the movie Aladdin at the District Library this weekend, so we decided to have a movie night with that theme. 

Rachel created Aladdin out of some leaves that she cut up and glued together. She made a head and hat out of paper and glued that on. Adding a binder clip and paper clip created the mechanism to let Aladdin go down the zipline. 

We also used a fruit snack box to create a marketplace escape. A bendy straw attached to a paper straw acts as the turning handle. We tied a piece of yarn on the straw and tied a paperclip to the other end of the yarn. Aladdin can be attached to the paperclip and lifted up the escape and dropped over the back of the "building". 

We used a piece of foam to act as a magic carpet. We put a magnet on the back of the foam. Using a long piece of cardboard, we moved a magnet under the cardboard so it looked like the carpet was moving on its own. 

We also did a lava jar with water, oil, food coloring, and alka seltzer tablets. We filled the jar 3/4 of the way with water, filled the rest of the jar with oil, added food coloring and dropped in alka seltzer tablets. We turned off the lights and shined a flashlight through. (The book said to just add salt instead of alka seltzer, but it didn't give us the reaction we were looking for. Salt and alka seltzer was cool.) 

The last craft we did was make diamond in the rough suncatchers. We cut a diamond outline out of cardstock and placed it on a piece of contact paper. The kids filled in the diamond with blue tissue paper. We added another diamond outline on top of that and covered it with another piece of contact paper. We trimmed the excess contact paper and taped them to the window. 

We made some pretzel sticks to represent the bread Aladdin steals, made naan bread, ate apples and caramels, and were going to make magic carpets out of graham crackers, frosting, and sprinkles, but we got full. 

Hummus

Ingredients

1 can (15 oz) chickpeas

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 cloves of garlic

2 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp cumin

salt to taste

Drain and rinse the chick peas. Place all of the ingredients except the oil in a food processor. Turn on and slowly drizzle in the olive oil. If a smoother consistency is desired, add 2 Tbsp cold water and blend. Store in the refrigerator. 

Goes very well with the easy naan bread. 

Cinnamon/sugar roasted nuts

Ingredients: 

1 egg white

2 tsp water

2 tsp vanilla

1 lb nuts (pick any raw almonds, walnuts, or pecans)

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Mix the egg white, water, and vanilla in a bowl until frothy. 

Add the nuts and coat them well. Mix the sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a Ziploc bag.

 Dump in the coated nuts and shake until coated. 

Pour on the baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes. 

Easy Naan Bread

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

Place the ingredients in a mixer and use the hook attachment to combine. 

After 2 minutes in the mixer, knead on a floured surface for a couple of minutes. 

Cut the dough into 8 pieces. 

Roll the dough out into a circle. Brush olive oil in a cast iron pan or skillet. Cook one circle at a time. Brush the exposed part of the circle with olive oil before flipping and cooking on the other side. 

Granola Bars

Ingredients: 

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 cups quick oats 

1 cup rice krispie cereal

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 Tbsp mini chocolate chips

Heat the butter, honey, brown sugar, and peanut butter until it starts to boil. Reduce heat and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. . 

Stir in the oatmeal and rice krispies

Press in a greased pan and sprinkle with mini chocolate chips. Press the chips down with your hand. 

Cut when they are cool and set. 

Magic 8 Ball Birthday Party

For Rachel's Golden Birthday (She turned 8 on 8/8), we decided to stick with the 8 theme. We made an 8-ball cake and pinata. 

3rd Annual Christmas in July

We love Christmas in July! We started the day with Santa waffles. 

Then we read Santa Bruce by Ryan Higgins and made some Bruce ornaments. (I found some wooden round circles at Walmart that I used as the base. The rest is made from cardstock, brown felt, google eyes, and a cotton ball. 

Then we made some Christmas creations out of Legos. 

The kids had a "snowball" fight with water balloons. 

Then we threw and shot (with a spoon) marshmallows into the tree made from red solo cups. 

We pulled out the Christmas photo boards for some photos. 

We decorated Christmas cookies. 

Made frozen hot chocolate (2 cups ice, 2 packages hot chocolate, and 1 cup of milk: after blended we added chocolate and original whipped cream and chocolate syrup)

The kids wrapped each other with toilet paper and added a paper nose to become snowmen. 

And they painted gingerbread houses. 

We did take advantage of a cheap present for each kid from Amazon Prime Day! They loved that part!