Made from Scratch

Oh, blogging world! How I have missed you so!

Tomorrow shall mark the end of another fabulous school year! As always, it is quite the bittersweet emotions that come over me at this very exciting time of the year! I am looking forward to some well deserved rest, as well as vacation fun! However, my kiddies have really touched a special place in my heart and I am going to miss them!!!! 

I have not had the opportunity to blog in a while, as report cards and assessments were what I woke up to in the morning and what I saw last before I closed my eyes at night. With all that behind me, I can begin to plan some integral parts of my new theme: SAFARI! Let me tell you something friends, I have JUNGLE FEVER! This is going to be soooo much fun! I can't wait to start sharing some ideas. 

The safari craze will have to wait for now, as I have a great experience to share with you all. As most schools, my second home implements the common practice of chocolate drives for fundraising. To encourage the students to sell, the school and P.P.O have come up with an incentive program, whereby the teachers provide a unique reward for students to choose from, when they have sold a certain amount of boxes. Each teacher decides upon a reward and creates an enticing envelope to encourage the students. The rewards vary from, principal for the day to a special lunch with a teacher. The envelopes are displayed on a bulletin board and students can place their name in the envelope of their choice. Once the fundraiser has come to an end, one name is chosen from each envelope 

and the winners claim their prizes! 

Being the avid baker that I am, I chose to have a baking session with a lucky winner!

To my surprise, it turned out to be quite popular and the lucky winner (and a friend) were overjoyed to bake for their classmates. 

Here is my envelope! 

Gotta love scrappindoodles! The cute graphics really won them over!

I decided that I wanted to make this activity extra special for these kiddos and so I created a recipe sheet for each of them to follow and keep. I also made them some pretty spiffy chef hats!

Here is a sneak peak at our vanilla cupcake recipe with buttercream frosting. 

I made the students follow the recipe and they made everything themselves. They did such an amazing job and we had a fabulous time together! I definitely plan on offering the same reward next year! 

It was so much fun!

As I mentioned, I also made hats! I got the idea from, none other than, Cara Carroll over at the First Grade Parade. Stop on by and check out how she made them! Super easy and "OH, SO CUTE!" 

Here's how mine turned out!

Not gonna lie, I wore one too! We would have made any pastry chef proud!

My little chefs created some real delicious masterpieces!

What I loved most about this idea was that the students got to choose any activity with any teacher. Thus, I got to spend time with some fifth graders! 

Thanks for stopping by and I apologize for being M.I.A. for some time now!

I am currently working on many new units for next year. 

I shall be posting all about my safari theme soon and posting some new fun units on TpT! I'll be teaching math again next year so I'll have some language arts and math units!

Until next time...

Ms. Nicole