Another Year

Yesterday was graduation day for my program.  I only had one student graduating this year and it is very sad for me knowing that I will likely never see her again.  This time of the year is not always my favorite.  Not just because we will lose those we have spent the last few years with day in and day out, but also because it brings on my least favorite time of the year, SUMMER BREAK!  Now trust me, I love all of the days off I get during the school year.  Three day weekends, spring and winter break, I love them all.  But, two weeks is about the maximum that I enjoy being off and sometimes even that is to long!  I am a broke empty nester, and sitting at home for 6 long weeks is just not that enjoyable to me anymore.  I know, I know, I can work in the yard, clean the house, work on home projects that require little or no money. All of which is fine for the first few weeks but than I start to get bored!

I also find myself worrying about my kids.  

*Are they regressing?  
*Are they eating 3 meals a day? 
*Are they getting the attention they deserve?

I know the six weeks will be over before I know it and before to long I will be wishing I had another break, lol.  

In the mean time, I hope you all had a great 2012/2013 school year and that YOU enjoy your time off this summer!

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!

Left Center Right

 This is one of our favorite games to play in class. If you haven't played this yet, the object of the game is to be the last player with a token.  We start by all sitting around a large table. Each player starts with 3 tokens (sometimes we use candy).  When it is your turn you will roll the 3 dice. (If you have 3 tokens you roll 3 dice, 2 tokens 2 dice, 1 token 1 dice, zero tokens you pass until you are passed tokens again).

For each dice you roll you will have 4 options:
L - pass a token to the person on your left
R - pass a token to the person on your right
C - token goes into a bowl in the center of the table.  This token is now "dead"
"DOT" - This mean you do nothing with this dice (no passing)

I used to have to write a big L and R on the table in front of about half my kids with a dry erase marker.  After a few months they all have mastered their left from their rights! It really gets crazy when it gets down to the last few tokens on the table!

I have even played this game at BBQ's with young and old alike using cash.  That gets really competitive!

Cooking Class - Hamburger Cookies

Week 2 - Today we made these adorable hamburger cookies in our cooking class! The kids got a kick every time I said "add your mustard/ketchup now".  I think every one of them said at least once "I don't like mustard/ketchup/lettuce."  I had to keep reassuring them that it was frosting!  They were able to put these together all on their own.  Time from start to finish about 30 minutes.   

Hamburger Cookies:

Vanilla Wafers
Grasshopper Cookies (Keebler)
Yellow frosting
Red frosting
green tinted coconut

We mixed the coconut and yellow frosting ourselves.  I wasn't sure I could get a good red color for the ketchup so I bought that one already mixed and in a tube.

Scavenger Hunt

 I have been trying to come up with some activities for the kids to do in the mornings OUTSIDE, before the temperature gets miserable.  We did this silent scavenger hunt this morning and had a great time.  I had the kids in groups of 3 students and an aide with each group.  As to not "disturb" the other classes they had to do the scavenger hunt without talking!

The object of the game was to go from classroom to classroom (or offices) and hand the clipboard to any adult staff member (we have at least 4 per classroom).  The instruction page was on top, so the staff members read the directions than turned the page to see if there was something they could give all while my kids stood silently (and tried to keep from giggling).  The giving staff had to mark off the item they gave (one per person) than leave their initials in the box after each item.  I gave the kids 30 minutes to get as many items as they could.  Only one team was able to get all the items, but the other two teams were very close.   All in all, they were super excited and seemed to have a really good time!

P.S. if anything, we ended up with 4 half boxes of tissues!

Cooking Classes

 I have taught ESY (extended school year) for the last 10 years and absolutely love it!  While sticking to my usual topics I teach, I try to make ESY a little more hands-on, interesting and fun. This year we are doing "electives" two days a week, and I signed up to do a cooking class!  Today we did fruit kabobs!!!

The concentration on their faces when they were cutting and skewering was priceless! 

The cutting boards I found at the 99 cent store and the lettuce knives I ordered online from Casa.com for about 4 dollars a piece. The kids picked their own fruit, cut it into bite size pieces and threaded them onto their skewers.  They did an amazing job and were so proud of their creations (which they promptly ate!)

Here is what else we are making this summer:  Rice Krispy Treats, Dirt Cups (complete with gummy worms) and Hamburger Cookies!  I can't wait!