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      • activating schema
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      • inferring
      • predicting
      • questioning
      • retelling / summarizing
      • visualizing
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    • environmental print
    • fluency
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    • word building
    • word consciousness
    • vocabulary
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    • creative writing
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    • informative writing
    • tripod grip
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    • computation
    • counting
    • numbers
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    • animals
    • plants
    • science experiments for kids
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      • new year’s
      • valentine’s day
      • president’s day
      • st. patrick’s day
      • april fool’s day
      • easter
      • mother’s day
      • teacher appreciation
      • father’s day
      • july 4th
      • halloween
      • thanksgiving
      • christmas
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our cookie baking day: favorite family annual holiday tradition

home / Activities / holidays / our cookie baking day: favorite family annual holiday tradition
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Every year, one of our advent calendar activities reads: Cookie Baking Day! 

annual cookie baking day

And what that means is that no matter the day–it’s always a surprise!–the kids and I ditch everything (and I mean, everything. . . ahem. . . ), don our aprons, and bake.

All. Day. Long.

My mom did this for us when we were growing up, and it’s one of my most fond childhood memories. It was special. It was crazy. It was busy and fun.

I knew that when I had children I’d do the same. It’s not hard. And when the kids are really young, baking one or two kinds of cookies is all we did.

As they get older, their roles in the day become bigger, and they become responsible for a bit more.

It’s a favorite family annual tradition.

Here’s the skinny. . .

Our Cookie Baking Day–Favorite Family Annual Holiday Tradition:

Our Cookie Baking Day is a day we all look forward to.

It’s a lot of work, but in the end, we have dozens and dozens of cookies that we take to holiday parties and give to our neighbors as gifts.

photo of aunt pat's chewy chocolate recipe

open pages of kids cookbook

This day is a whole lot more than just a cookie-baking day!

The teacher in me looks at the day as an opportunity for some real-life reading, math, and science learning.

The parent in me knows that the day is an opportunity for the kids to spend one special, unexpected day together, making memories and working hard at something that is important to each one of us.

It’s important to temper expectations. 

Do the days always go picture-perfect? Um, no.

Do the cookies always look beautiful, taste scrumptious, and look bakery-fab? No, no, and no.

hershey kisses in jar

ginger bread cookies being cut in dough

dough balls on plate

Do the kids get along harmoniously, taking perfect turns and following instructions top to bottom? No and no.

Does the kitchen get totally rocked by the end of the day, like a small bomb exploded in our house? Absolutely.

three kids' hands cutting cookies

gingerbread ninja cookie in dough

So many funny memories!

There was the time that Maddy slid across the counter and sent the salt shaker splattering into our dough.

The many times, while the kids were learning to crack eggs, that eggs exploded like fireworks in tiny hands.

We’ve had milk spilled, cookies fall, and ingredients forgotten.

We’ve spilled bags of chocolate chips.

We’ve seen Brady steal aprons and oven mitts; we’ve experienced burns and power outages.

cookie toppings on white plate

Some years are easier than others.

How we schedule our day:

Light planning

Before our Cookie Baking Day, Maddy, Owen, Cora, and I talk about what kinds of cookies we’ll bake that year.  Some years we try new kinds, and other years, we stick to old faves.

Big shopping

I take their suggestions into account and do the shopping for ingredients. Because the day is a surprise for them, I make the general cookie-baking plan. I hide the ingredients so no one notices.

ingredients for cookies on counter

cookie-baking ingredients on counter

unwrapped hershey's kisses in bowls

Big surprising. 

The kids wake and get ready for the day as normal. Then whomever’s day it is opens the Advent Calendar and reads that day’s Advent Activity: It’s Cookie Baking Day! Let’s bake, bake, BAKE!!

Serious baking.

We start before breakfast, making one dough and refrigerating it. We make another dough and send the first tray into the oven. We continue all day long, through dinner.

child putting chocolate chips into cookie dough

child puts cookie tray into oven

child puts hershey kisses on top of cookies

melted hershey kiss on top of cookie

Some eating.

We break for meals while cookies bake.   Of course we test the cookies along the way. Come ON.

Light resting. 

Really, the kids only rest for one show after lunch, and even then, somebody takes a turn to stay with me in the kitchen. When I say we work all day, we really do work all day.

finished holiday cookies in box

three boxes of cookies

holiday cookie boxes and tins

Big sharing.

We put many of our cookies away in tins, but one thing we really look forward to is assembling small packages of cookies for our neighbors. Not everyone–that would be crazy–but for a handful of close neighbors, we put an arrangement of our cookie-creations together in a pretty tin or container, and we deliver our sweets one day that week.  So fun.

Do you want to give the Annual Cookie Baking Day a try at your house?

Sure you do! It’s totally not too late!

You can follow the recipe below for some kid-friendly recipe reading:

script async data-uid="b09aaada4f" src="https://teach-mama-media-llc.ck.page/b09aaada4f/index.js"></script>

And if you like this, check out our whole Holiday Baking with Kids eBook!  15 recipes your family will love.

holiday baking with kids eBook

Or check out some other fun recipes from our friends at Target–some new twists on classic faves.

How do you handle holiday baking? I’d love to hear:

  • what are your fave holiday treats to bake?
  • do your kids help in the kitchen?
  • who do you share your sweets with?

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About amy mascott

teacher, mother, dreamer. lover of literacy, fun learning, good food, and three crazy-cool kids. finder of four-leaf clovers | dc metro ยท http://about.me/amymascott
tweet with me: @teachmama

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Oh HEEEEEYYY, @luvvie โ€” did you see that @littletroublemaker made our hallway bulletin board? ๐Ÿ˜‰โ™ฅ๏ธ

(Itโ€™s what Rusty the ๐ŸฆŠ is currently reading.) 

Find it at your favorite bookstore or order here: https://amzn.to/3Pu3tWs

(This is my affiliate link, so when you use it, I will earn a small percentage of the sale, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for using my link and supporting my small business!)

#readingteacher #raiseareader #kidlit #bestbooks #linkinbio
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What questions do you have about dyslexia? 

For the next few weeks leading up to my own start to the school year I am sharing a new series called โ€œDe-Mystifying Dyslexiaโ€ and I would love for you to join me! 

Follow in my stories or on the highlight above!

#dyslexia #teading  #readingteacher #raiseareader #demystifyingdyslexia
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(Part 2) 

The series will be shared on IG stories, on tiktok, on the teachmama facebook page, and in the Take 5 newsletter. 

Look for the logo on social, and if you want to receive the whole thing via email, then sign up for Take5 on the link below. 

Iโ€™m really excited about this. Itโ€™s taken a long, long time to create, and the only thing I ask is that you, once viewing it all, could take 2 minutes to give me some feedback. There will be a google form on the last of the slides, at the end of the series. I thank you, I appreciate you, and I look forward to learning along with you.

Join the Take 5 list if you want this series to land in your inbox: 
https://take5.teachmama.com/

#raiseareader #demystifyingdyslexia #readingteacher teachersofIG dyslexia teachreading
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Hi and thank you for your interest in watching my โ€˜de-mystifying dyslexiaโ€™ series. 

My name is Amy Mascott, and Iโ€™m a reading specialist and former high school English teacher. Iโ€™m also the creator of teachmama.com  where since 2008, Iโ€™ve helped families make meaningful connections with their kids and build bridges between home and school. 

As an educator, Iโ€™m always trying to share important informationโ€”bc I really think that when we know better, we do better. This series is part of my final project for a course Iโ€™m taking through Advancement Courses called โ€˜understanding dyslexiaโ€™. 

And as a reading teacher, I need to know all I can about this condition. What I realized is that I had a lot to learnโ€”maybe you, as a parent or teacher yourself, can also stand to learn a little bit. 

Maybe, like me, youโ€™ve grown up thinking that dyslexia was a condition where people read letters backwardsโ€”b for d or p for g? Maybe you thought, like I did, that if a person was dyslexic, they saw all of the letters jumbled together on the page? Iโ€™m here to tell you that both of those things are untrue. 

So if you would like to learn a little about dyslexiaโ€”if you would like for me to โ€˜de-mystify dyslexiaโ€™ for you, then follow along! 

(Continued on next VIDEO)

#readingteacher #teachersofIG #demystifyingdyslexia

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Oh HEEEEEYYY, @luvvie โ€” did you see that @littletroublemaker made our hallway bulletin board? ๐Ÿ˜‰โ™ฅ๏ธ

(Itโ€™s what Rusty the ๐ŸฆŠ is currently reading.) 

Find it at your favorite bookstore or order here: https://amzn.to/3Pu3tWs

(This is my affiliate link, so when you use it, I will earn a small percentage of the sale, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for using my link and supporting my small business!)

#readingteacher #raiseareader #kidlit #bestbooks #linkinbio
View
Open
How can people with dyslexia learn to read? ๐Ÿค”

Here are the 3๏ธโƒฃ elements that reading instruction should contain in order to be most effective for students with dyslexiaโ€”

#demystifyingdyslexia #raiseareader #readingteacher #teachreading #dyslexiaawareness
View
Open
Lately when I find four leaf clovers, Iโ€™ve been leaving them. ๐Ÿ€๐Ÿคท๐Ÿผโ€โ™€๏ธ

So if youโ€™re in Maryland, and you happen upon a lonely, little 4-leafer with very little grass, weeds, or leaves around it, I donโ€™t know WHO tried to set you up for success.

#yougotthis #keepyoureyesopen #itsthelittlethings #kilpattyluck
View
Open
Okayโ€”how do we know if someone has dyslexia? 

Which professionas are able to make that important determination? 

โ–ถ๏ธ Watch to find out. 

Hit me with the questions you still have about dyslexiaโ€”and know we have a few more posts to go!

#demystifyingdyslexia #raiseareader #teachreading #readingteachersofig
View
Open
What are some of the common signs of dyslexia?

Watch to learn and find out!

#demystifyingdyslexia #readingteacher #raiseareader #teachreading #dyslexia
View
Open
True โœ… or false โŒ?

#demystifyingdyslexia #dyslexiaeducation #readingteacher #raiseareader #teachreading
View
Open
What do you know about dyslexia? 

What questions do you have about dyslexia? 

For the next few weeks leading up to my own start to the school year I am sharing a new series called โ€œDe-Mystifying Dyslexiaโ€ and I would love for you to join me! 

Follow in my stories or on the highlight above!

#dyslexia #teading  #readingteacher #raiseareader #demystifyingdyslexia
View
Open
(Part 2) 

The series will be shared on IG stories, on tiktok, on the teachmama facebook page, and in the Take 5 newsletter. 

Look for the logo on social, and if you want to receive the whole thing via email, then sign up for Take5 on the link below. 

Iโ€™m really excited about this. Itโ€™s taken a long, long time to create, and the only thing I ask is that you, once viewing it all, could take 2 minutes to give me some feedback. There will be a google form on the last of the slides, at the end of the series. I thank you, I appreciate you, and I look forward to learning along with you.

Join the Take 5 list if you want this series to land in your inbox: 
https://take5.teachmama.com/

#raiseareader #demystifyingdyslexia #readingteacher teachersofIG dyslexia teachreading
View
Open
Hi and thank you for your interest in watching my โ€˜de-mystifying dyslexiaโ€™ series. 

My name is Amy Mascott, and Iโ€™m a reading specialist and former high school English teacher. Iโ€™m also the creator of teachmama.com  where since 2008, Iโ€™ve helped families make meaningful connections with their kids and build bridges between home and school. 

As an educator, Iโ€™m always trying to share important informationโ€”bc I really think that when we know better, we do better. This series is part of my final project for a course Iโ€™m taking through Advancement Courses called โ€˜understanding dyslexiaโ€™. 

And as a reading teacher, I need to know all I can about this condition. What I realized is that I had a lot to learnโ€”maybe you, as a parent or teacher yourself, can also stand to learn a little bit. 

Maybe, like me, youโ€™ve grown up thinking that dyslexia was a condition where people read letters backwardsโ€”b for d or p for g? Maybe you thought, like I did, that if a person was dyslexic, they saw all of the letters jumbled together on the page? Iโ€™m here to tell you that both of those things are untrue. 

So if you would like to learn a little about dyslexiaโ€”if you would like for me to โ€˜de-mystify dyslexiaโ€™ for you, then follow along! 

(Continued on next VIDEO)

#readingteacher #teachersofIG #demystifyingdyslexia

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