cooking

I am THRILLED to be teaming up with 24 other amazing bloggers to offer you ideas, recipes, freebies, and best of all — a giveaway of awesome prizes! — to get you prepped and ready for a great year! At the end of this post you’ll find a way to enter the giveaway and links to the next stop on your hop, but I hope you’ll settle in and enjoy what I have in store for you first!

I love using cooking as a part of my classroom because it is such a concrete, real-world application of skills and often integrates multiple content areas. One of my favorite activities I did using cookie last year involved cooking-play, writing, and oral language!

What kid doesn’t love pizza? In all my years of working with children, I’ve only met one. And that one child had a good ‘old time sharing his opinion of why he didn’t like pizza, and what toppings he thought would make pizza the worst.

But for everyone else, they love this activity! I start a menu checklist of sorta for each student; this serves as a brainstorming activity for both the play and writing aspect of this project. Then, I provide each student with blacklines of dough and sauce. Each child then “shops” a “buffet” of toppings — but they can only choose three. I do this so that the writing component is manageable for each kiddo (and me, when editing). Students have the freedom, however, to choose how much or how little they want of each topping!

Next, students make their pizzas at their desks like chefs. I often play music while we’re doing this, music that will transport them to the kitchen of their favorite authentic-Italian pizza place! (For me, this would totally be my mother-in-law’s kitchen, as my husband is Italian, but this music from YouTube is the next best thing!) I love seeing their creations and how VERY different they are! Students love to pile on the cheese, but surprisingly, tomatoes and peppers too!

After their pizzas are made, we work on a graphic organizer to help students get their opinions on paper. I model for them writing a good opening statement, and then they — with the help of their pizzas — write their own. Next, we work on giving a clear and compelling reason we picked each topping. This is totally where the drama happens! I suddenly become very opinionated and pushy with my kiddos and then a little light-bulb goes off — they need to be opinionated too!

Next, we use our graphic organizers to write rough drafts. Students will often use their word dictionaries at this point and also rely on their peers for a little peer-editing! (Which I *love*.) Finally, after I’ve conferred with them, they write their final copies and prepare their pizzas for their pizza boxes! {Sometimes you can get your local pizza place to donate personal-sized boxes — definitely ask and mention why you’re using them, they may even throw in some coupons for your kids!}

This writing project is one of my favorites all year because it is something that is so relevant to the kids and their writing just soars! I’d love for you to be able to do this project too, so click below to get it as a forever-freebie from me to you!

Before you go, I’d love to share one of my favorite school-year meals! My husband and I have two little boys that take up a great deal of our time, so between commuting, teaching, and mothering, dinner is always a challenge!

I love utilizing my crockpot to make things easier. I’ve found I can make the most delicious BBQ you’ll ever eat with just three simple ingredients! Fire up your crockpot, dump them all in, and cook on low for 8 hours!

Ingredients: pork loin {we use about three pounds at a time}, Stubb’s BBQ dry-rub, and Stubb’s BBQ sauce. That’s it! Serve with coleslaw and your other favorite fixins and it’s a TOTAL hit!