Ice Cream in a Baggie

It's that time of year again when we get to make ice cream in a baggie!! We did it assembly line style this year, and they added each ingredient as they walked past it on the table. I did help a couple with the vanilla because they couldn't seem to hold the measuring spoon level, but other than that they did it ALL BY THEMSELVES! I didn't even have to help out with any of the shaking this year! It took a few minutes for a couple of my boys to be talked into trying it. We finally just left them alone and after minutes of funny faces and continuously smelling their bags, they gave it a try and were hooked!

*TIP - Place baggie inside a plastic cup while measuring (and eating). This will keep the ingredients from spilling and give the kids two hands to do their measuring with!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Ice-Cream-Recipe-with-Visuals-680057

Using Visual Recipes

As you can probably tell from some of my previous posts, I absolutely love cooking with my kids!  We don't get to do in near as often as I would like since we have to finance it with our own money and it can get quite pricey. We still are trying to do it at least once or twice a month, and my aide are great about helping out with ingredients!

Every time we get ready to try a new recipe I like to have a visual to go with it. This way we can go over the recipe step by step before we head into the kitchen to do the actual cooking. We always send a copy home (in hopes that their folks let them try to make it there) and we put one in their binders that they take home when they graduate. As you can see they go from pretty basic recipes to a little more challenging as to try to find things that all my kids will be able to make independently.

You can find the recipe book here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Follow-Along-Recipes-989267

Dirt Cups

~ Week 3 ~

For our cooking class this week we made Dirt Cups.  I was trying to find another reason for the kids to use the knives and cutting boards again and this worked out great!  Each student was given 3 Oreo cookies to make into "dirt".  After the cookies were cut, we made one box of chocolate pudding as directed and added a half container of Cool Whip (I have no idea why I added this). The students than layered half their "dirt", a ladle of the "mud", the other half of their "dirt" and topped each with a gummy worm!  

Great fun!

Hamburger Helper visual Recipe

I love using these visual recipes with my students.  My students are totally capable of preparing something like this with a little bit of help.  I really want to do a lot more cooking in my classroom this year.   They all LOVE to cook!  I am always surprised and saddened on how many of my students don't get the opportunity at home to cook.  Here is a basic recipe for hamburger helper.   This will not work for all varieties  and I did not put amounts of each ingredient, as each box was a little different.  Do you cook with your students?  What kinds of thigs are fun and easy to cook in the classroom?  I will give away this recipe card to the first 5 people who comment below.  Be sure to leave your email address!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Hamburger-Helper-Recipe-with-Visuals

Entertaining Guests

We do a few activities on entertaining throughout the year.   In this activity we are pretending we are having company come to our home for lunch.  The students have to make a grocery list by using the recipe cards attached.  Go to the grocery store with your list and find the items you have listed.  Add your totals when you get back to class.  Would even be fun, financing available, to put the students into groups of 5 and let them  buy the ingredients and create the meal.  We do another activity similar to this, where the students create their own menu for a pretend dinner party.  We go over all the things that would make a meal from drinks, salad, soups, main dishes and desserts.  They cut pictures from the abundance of food magazines we have and paste their menu to paper.  The menus range from mac and cheese with Hot Pockets to prime rib and brussel sprouts!  It is a lot of fun!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvY3NHOTR1a1lTeWVBdlhJYlNwOU9aQQ/edit
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8NVsf6Y1KIvVVl2ZnhELUJSemFPckpZejFTQnlLZw/edit