Giant Oatmeal Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies

Last year when we had a slew of tornadoes rip through eastern Kentucky, my daughter Maren wanted to do a charity bake sale to help raise funds for the victims.  People were very supportive and she had a great experience.  When she heard about the tornado in Oklahoma, she wanted to do it again.  Since she was busy finishing up the last week of school and attending play rehearsals, she partnered with her brothers who did most of the baking (heavily supervised of course).  They again had a great experience thanks to friends and strangers who supported their efforts.  

We made lemon cupcakes, rice krispy treats with m&ms, fruity pebble treats, mint chocolate brownies, and giant oatmeal chocolate chip m&m cookies for the bake sale.  (side note: Nathan always called it a bakery sale, and I just thought that was so cute.)  We had never tried large cookies before and they turned out really well so I thought I'd share the recipe we used.  Of course, you can also do normal size cookies, but giant cookies are so much more fun. 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip m&m Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups rolled oats

2 cups chocolate chips

bag of mini m&ms


Cream together butter, shortening, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.  Stir in dry ingredients.  Then stir in chocolate chips.  Normal size cookies: Using a cookie scoop, scoop cookie dough onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Cover the scoop with mini m&ms.  Put them as close together as you can because they will spread out while baking.  Bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes. 

For Double Size cookies: before adding m&ms, combine 2 of the scoops into a ball and place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Flatten cookie a bit into a circle.  Cover top with mini m&ms.  Bake in 325 degree oven for 19-21 minutes.  (For my oven, 19 minutes was about perfect, but ovens are different, so you may need to just experiment.) The recipe made 21 giant cookies for us. 

Next time we will have to try triple size cookies.  Mmmmmmmm.  

Summer Reading Charts 2013

I can not believe today is the last day of school! It snuck up on me.  Sneaky last day of school.

Our summer reading starts today!  I love doing summer reading incentives for my kids.  We've done game boards, a beach scene, a balloon pop, and this year we are doing bookworms.

I put summer reading coupons on the back of cut out circles.  The coupons are for a dime, quarter, 30 minutes screen time (wii/computer/show), iTunes download, ice cream, prize basket (which contains random small toys I've collected from different places), or new book. I put the circles in an envelope with their name on it.

I let the kids decorate one circle to be the head of their bookworm and put it up on the wall to get started.

When the kids read a book, they will write it down on their list of books read.  If I think it was a long enough, hard enough book (so at their level) then they get to choose a circle out of the envelope, pull off the coupon, and add the circle to their bookworm (using painters tape so as not to damage the wall).  If it was an easy peasy book for them (i.e., it took them 20 minutes to read) they can still write it down, but will need to combine it with other books in order to earn a segment of their bookworm.

It will be fun to see how long their bookworms will grow this summer!  Yay for summer reading!!

(See how our long the bookworms grew and the kids' favorite books in this summer reading wrap up post)

Children's Book Week 2013

Happy Children’s Book Week!

This week is National Children’s Book Week, in case you didn't know.  Here is a list of some book related activities we have done in the past to celebrate children’s books.  Also this week we are going to make bookmarks and videotape book reviews of the kids' favorite books.  Yay books!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Joyful Noise

Cam Jansen

How I Became a Pirate

A Pizza the Size of the Sun

Mrs. Wishy Washy 

Scranimals

Booking Across the USA - Kentucky book and activities