Smooooothies…

So, for our last activity of the year, my class and I had the joy of making smoothies.  Lots of leftover vanilla ice cream from the end of the year party, and we were blending up a storm.  Here are the combinations and the attendant coloring (in the spirit of Kool-Aid and Jello where no one ever really calls them by the flavor, it’s all in the color!):

#1–guava juice with guava slices and vanilla ice cream and milk– Pink!

#2– orange juice with vanilla ice cream, bananas, and an extra dollop of vanilla– Orange!

#3– chocolate syrup, chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, mint extract dribble (Can I just say I LOVE MINT EXTRACT!!!), banana, and the rest of the milk–Brown!

We had an overall fun time though there was that episode of the bad teacher tipping the blender lid with its bevy of goop across the carpet…

Puzzles for fun!

Puzzles are great for those times when kids are finished with the assignment, and need to wait for the rest of the class. They’re also good ways for kids to learn vocabulary, and pay attention to spellings. My students are really fond of wordsearches and crosswords.

Discovery Education’s Puzzlemaker is good for making a few different kinds puzzles.

ArmoredPenguin.com lets you save and print puzzles as PDF files (though my crossword puzzle apparently got some of the key words cut off the bottom), and has a collection of crossword puzzles that you can try out just for fun too!

Cure for the hot blues!

I’m a bit sad, because last week I said good-bye to most of my students from this year.

Here in Taipei, it is HOT.  We have a heat index (how hot it feels) of 98 degrees Fahrenheit and 36 degrees Celsius according to Weather Underground…

So, how does one cool off???

ICE CREAM!

Today as part of our summer school food unit, we made ice cream!  I tweaked this recipe (used less ice, which might have caused our ice cream to be a bit softer than otherwise, less sugar, and no vanilla.  We had one whole cup of milk and added chocolate syrup to the desired color brownness, one bag with a 1/4 tsp of mint extract instead of vanilla, OR a mushed up chocolate wafer or chocolate chip cookie added ), and we shook shook shook by lots of dancing and jumping around.

Dancing and jumping around TOO much might have contributed to our leaks.  So if you choose to make this, double-bag your ice, and use Ziploc, instead of the generic brand.  (However, our experiment with mint was a failure thanks to the Ziploc smaller bag breaking– it was salty ice cream, ick.)  Also, if you choose to make this, kneading the bag with your hands instead of just hopping may help as well  (hopping is fun and good exercise though!).

You can also use large cans to make the ice cream as this link points out.

So go ahead– make yourself some ice cream and experiment!  This link says that you can use juice to make your own sorbet too!