quick and easy halloween ghost cookies

Oct 22, 2013 // No Comment // Categories: halloween, holidays // Tags: cooking, early literacy, elementary schoolers, family fun, family life, food, Halloween, holidays, math.

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sweet spooky chocolate cookie ghosts

October has been an incredibly busy month for us, with me finishing up two classes on top of all of my other normal work.

However, our crazy schedule isn’t stopping us from having a whole lot of Halloween fun over here.

Our Halloween Banana Ghosts were a big hit way back when, so rather than stay healthy, I thought I’d mix it up a bit and really ‘up’ our sweet and fat intake and make Sweet, Spooky Halloween Cookie Ghosts.

White chocolate. Nutter Butters. Chocolate chips. Bam.

Actually, in all honesty, I wanted a quick and easy seasonal treat and I was craving Nutter Butters. So that’s why we made them.

And because these cookies only need a handful of ingredients, there really is no recipe reading involved. But there’s a lot of basic sequencing with the repeated steps, so that is what I emphasized.

Cora was my helper, and by the time we were finished, yes we were covered in white chocolate, but we also had a full tray of fun ‘homemade’ cookies to share for Grandma’s birthday dinner that night.

Here’s the skinny. . .

Sweet, Spooky Halloween Cookie Ghosts:

Little hands are big helpers with these chocolatey treats, so be sure to gather your small helpers.

You will need:

White chocolate chips

Mini milk chocolate chips

Regular sized milk chocolate chips

Nutter Butter cookies (or Vienna Fingers—any long oval cookie will work)

Cookie sheets lined with wax paper

1. Prepare your cookie sheets by lining them with the wax paper.

Explain to your helper that you will need a spot to drop these sweet and spooky ghosts after they’re dipped, so you are thinking a head and preparing a spot for them. The worst thing would be to have a drippy cookie with no place to put him to cool.

2. Melt the white chocolate chips.

I explained to Cora that when melting chocolate, it is really important to do it slowly and carefully. We didn’t want to place them in the microwave on high for five minutes or the chocolate would burn and get crusty.

Rather, we put the bowl in the microwave for 45 seconds, took it out and mixed it.

We put it in the microwave again for 45 seconds, mixed and repeated until the chocolate was totally smooth and melted.

She loved mixing the chocolate with the spatula and watching it become more and more smooth.

3. Dip a cookie in the chocolate.

Easy as that. Dip, twist to make sure it’s covered on the front and back, and place on the wax paper.

4. Place the chocolate chip eyes and mouth onto the ghost.

We used mini chips for the eyes and regular-sized ones for the ‘BOO!’ mouth.

Cora did this job almost entirely by herself because her tiny fingers were better for the job. And of course I let her know that.

As we built our ghost cookies, I was careful to use sequential words like first, second, third, next, after, and last.

I tried to use words like before and after, left and right, top and bottom. Easy words I know she knows and covered in pre-k and Kindergarten but that I want her to use and remember.

halloween cookie ghosts

I wanted to squeeze in as much meaningful everyday math vocabulary as I could, not only because it’s important for Cora to learn, but also because it’s great for her to use these words ‘in action’. And really? It’s great for kids to have as much at-home practice of their at-school learning as possible.

For our family, some of the most fun and memorable learning has been done in our kitchen–over sweets.