Lunar New Years Treat - Sticky Cake

So Chinese/Lunar New Years started yesterday. For those who don't know, Chinese New Years Eve is when the big feast normally happens. Traditionally, there are certain dishes you have to eat during the feast because they represent something like good fortune or luck for the new year.

One of the dishes that is traditionally eaten is this dessert dish known as sticky cake ("nian gao" in Chinese). Yesterday, I learned from my mother how to make it so I made it to share with the staff. The staff really enjoyed it so I think I will make it for my class when we have our Lunar New Year luncheon next Friday. It is very easy to make so I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone in case they want to make it to go with their Lunar New Year lessons. Warning: You will need to go to an Asian market for some of the ingredients (I've included pictures for your reference).

Red Bean Sticky Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter (8 oz) melted

2 tsps of baking powder

1/2 cup to 1 cup of sugar (brown sugar works too)
3 eggs
2 cups of milk

1 bag of rice flour (16 oz)

 1 bag of red bean paste (400g)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

2. Mix the rice flour, sugar, and baking powder together.

3. Add the melted butter, eggs, and milk to the dry mixture.

4. Pour half of the mixture into a 9x13 inch pan for the bottom layer (make sure it is spread evenly). Put it in the oven and bake it for 20 minutes.

5. Take the pan out of the oven and spread the red bean paste evenly on the sticky cake. Pour the rest of the mixture on top of the red bean paste to create the top layer. Put the pan back into the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. Poke a stick through to check if it's done. If the stick comes out clean it's done!

6. Take the pan out and it's all done! Serve warm. Serving size is around 26 pieces. 

Don't have a picture of the whole product because the staff devoured it before I  could remember to take one!

Just another thing to add to my Lunar New Years lesson plan. If you need more ideas, please check out my Lunar New Years Idea linky party for more ideas. If you have lessons to share, it's not too late to link up! :)

Last but not least...I have a new product! If you are currently teaching the addition strategy of making 10 to add and need something that goes along with Valentine's Day (which is exactly why I created this), this is the perfect product for you!

Click on the image above to see it at my TpT store!

Not sure how many people would want this but let's see! First three people to comment get this product for free! Please sure to leave your email address in your comment! :)

Five for Friday

I already wrote a post on Friday for the 100th day of school so I had to postpone Five for Friday to a Saturday post.

1. Our terrariums are growing like crazy! Too bad all our living organisms are underground and can't be seen. At least none of the earthworms have died yet. Just about all of them died within a week last year. 

2. Dyeing pasta for for the 100th day of school!

3. We went on a field trip to the Oakland Museum of California on Wednesday. When we were there, we took a workshop and learned about ground painting. The kids got to create their own paint and everything!

4. Thursday's art lesson continued our unit on textures. Since Lunar New Year is coming up, the subject of our artwork is the dragon. After tracing the dragon template, the students used patterns to create textures. Some of them turned out really great!

5. Friday was the 100th day of school! Enough said. :)

Don't forget to link up too! :)

It's the 100th Day!

Today was the 100th day of school! Exciting day for the kids. Today is probably the only day they didn't mind counting the numbers of days of school multiple times different ways during calendar time. We counted by 10s, then 5s, and 1s!!!

Made on Vistaprint last year!

Gifts to the students

We started the day with 100 day project presentations. Some of the students came up with some really creative stuff!

100 goldfishes in the shape of a goldfish!

100 dogs (stenciled in)

100 pictures from first grade (I'm in there somewhere!)

 After the presentations, we went into centers!

I dyed the pasta at home!

100 day crowns!

The students had a blast! We went to the computer lab after and did some typing practice followed by some activities with a 100 chart on ABCya.com. Then we ended the day with a video of Emily's First 100 Days of School.

Great way to end the week! :)

How did you or are going to celebrate the 100th day of school? 

Place Value Freebie

So after the first Kagan workshop last week (which I still need to blog about), I took my colleague to RAFT (Resource Area For Teaching) which is basically a warehouse where teachers can get all sorts of supplies for discounted prices (with membership). If you live in the Bay Area in California, I would definitely recommend checking it out! Anyways, I came upon these awesome things while at RAFT...

Click the image to see it on Amazon.

Place value dice! How cool is that? RAFT sold each one separately which is great for me since we only go up to 100. I bought 2 tens dice and 2 ones dice to try them out in the classroom. I also made a worksheet for students to complete to help reinforce place value. 

Click the image above to download it! I'm excited to see how it works out! :)

Sweet Moment - Reminder of Why I Work With Kids

Boy was today an up and down day! First off, our schedule got completely mixed up due to some special guests in the classroom. One of our second grade teachers was running a little late and asked the secretary to take her kids to Music. Lucky her, the Music teacher called in sick this morning which left her class without a teacher for 50 minutes. So the first grade teachers split the class into three and took the 2nd graders in for the first 50 minutes of the day. It was kind of cool because I basically got most of my former students back in my classroom for a bit.

It was great to see my former students in the classroom again! However, our normal schedule is to do calendar and phonics during the first 50 minutes of the day. With around 10 extra second graders in the classroom, I didn't want to bore them so I had the second graders teach my class the first grade song for our school oratorical event. It was tons of fun but completely threw our schedule off which led to a frustrating late morning.

Somehow, the kids were able to turn themselves around after lunch and we were able to catch up on all the stuff we missed in the morning. I ended the day being in a much better mood and somehow most of the class ended up on on "Good Day" and "Outstanding" on my clip chart. Reflecting on today...it makes me really proud of my students that they were able to pull themselves together before the day ended (it doesn't normally happen, believe me).

And another sweet moment to share. When I was in college, I volunteered as a tutor in a non-profit after school program. I worked with third to fifth graders and helped them with their homework. There was this one student in particular who gave me a rough time at first. He would refuse to follow my directions and didn't seem to care much about his education at all. But I never gave up on him and kept going at it. One day, months later, it somehow clicked for him and when my semester with him was over, he was the only kid who wrote me a thank you note thanking me for my help. Now this kid is in high school (crazy!). It's his birthday today so I left a happy birthday comment on his facebook. And this was his reply:

Thanks Pam! Which school do you work for now? You were a great foundation towards my education!!

AWWWWWWW. That made my heart melt. You know, it's the tough kids who seem to show the greatest appreciation for all hard work we educators do for them.

Just had to share. I thought the teacher blogging world would be able to relate. :)

February Currently & New Product!

How many of you watched the Super Bowl today? So sad the Niners last the Super Bowl. But at least they made a comeback and we were very close in the end!

To end the night, I am linking up with Farley's February Currently!

Hands up if you agree that you need more time! This weekend has definitely been a busy one with errands to run and things to create for class and a football game to watch! This month is going to be a crazy one for sure! Friday is the 100th day of school. Next week is Valentine's Day. Week after that is our school's Lunar New Year parade. And the last week of February is our school oratorical event. Plus, besides all the holidays and events, we also have our language arts and math benchmark assessments to take this month too! Yep, I could definitely use more time to prepare for and get everything done. 

On my pet peeve..I see myself as someone who gives my trust out easily to those close to me. I am also not one to get mad easily (annoyed, yes, but mad? no) so there are a lot of things people can say to me and I'll be okay with it. That said, when people abuse my trust (basically...lie), then it's REALLY hard to gain my trust back. Let's just all be honest with each other, right?

And now on to the other part of this post's title...a new product!

Click on the image above to check it out in my TpT store!

And lastly, I know I'm sounding desperate right now, but if you have written about any ideas for Lunar/Chinese New Years, please join my linky party!

Even if you don't have anything to link, please share this with your other blogging friends! It's a bit discouraging to not see many link ups on the first linky party you host. Oh, awesome linky party hosts, please show me your ways! :)

Five for Friday

Another short week for us again! We had no school on today for a PD day. I actually had an even shorter week with the kids since I was gone for two days for a training but more on that later...

And since it is Friday..it's time for Five for Friday! :)

 1. Opened our new OCR unit, Journeys, on Monday. This is my favorite board to make because I get to display all my postcards! I collect postcards from traveling friends and students. :)

2. On Tuesday, we got a classroom visit from a local Arts & Science center. The art docent led my class through an art lesson in creating cardboard ducks using the style of artist James Castle.

3. I was gone on Wednesday and Thursday for a training with Kagan. If you ever have the chance to attend a Kagan training, I highly recommend it! I attended a workshop on higher-level thinking and win-win discipline and both of them were great! I learned so much from them, especially in the win-win discipline workshop. I plan to share some thoughts in another blog spot later this weekend. :)

4. Since I was "out of town" (40 mins away) for two days for the workshops, it wasn't REALLY considered a school night. After our Wednesday workshop, my friend/colleague (who went to the workshops with me) and I went to go watch Lincoln. Good movie! 

5. Back in the classroom on Friday for PD day and I look through all the work my kids did while I was gone. Found this amusing. Not really sure how to read this so I just counted it as correct since I know this student can do it. 

Be sure to visit Doodle Bugs Teaching to link up!

Also, if you have any posts on Lunar/Chinese New Years, please join my linky party! :)