Back To School.....For Me

Hello All,

    I teach students with dyslexia to read in an awesome school district here in Texas.  The school, the teachers, and the district have spent a week casting the vision for the coming school year and it promises to be exceptional.  Below you will see the tee shirts that reflect this vision.

This is the district shirt - 100%-All Means All - This is the continuation of our "One Vision" transformation journey that began last year.  All educators are encouraged to stay on the path and continue to transform and improve the district one student at a time.

This one says "1 in 5 Students Depend on Me."  I am passionate about identifying and teaching students with dyslexia and providing remediation that will pave the way for a lifetime of success. Struggling readers need support and often have feelings of uncertainty and low self-esteem.  The alarmingly high incidence of dyslexia surprised me.  I had no idea that 20 percent of our population had some level of Dyslexia.  That's a huge number and answered a lot of nagging questions about why some students were lagging behind in language acquisition and reading.

This hashtag is on the back of our school shirt this year.  It is a reminder for us to make the learning experience accessible to all students.  I especially believe that if they don't learn the way we teach, then we need to teach the way they learn.  I am proud that our MTA curriculum is multi-sensory and inherently engaging.  I still remind myself every day to develop lessons that students will enjoy by taking into consideration their specific interests and learning styles.  The best part of my job is developing the personal relationships with the kiddos and watching them grow!!

     On a different subject, I made some puppy chow with my kids on Friday night and decided to blog about it for a couple of reasons.  The recipes fit into the "Back to School" theme because I love giving treats like this to my teammates or sending baggies to school with my kids in their lunches.  The two flavors we made were Caramel Churro and Lemon White Chocolate Puppy Chow.

Carmel Churro Mix
Ingredients:

• 4 1/2 cups Rice Chex™ cereal
• 4 1/2 cups Corn Chex™ cereal
• 1cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
• 1/4 up light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions

Assemble Ingredients

Preheat oven to 350.  Place cereal in a large, heat safe bowl.  Line a large baking sheet with foil and spray with nonstick baking spray.

In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar and set aside.   in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, bring the brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup mixture to a boil.  Let boil for one minute, stirring constantly, then remove from heat and stir in baking soda.  We didn't have any baking soda, and it still turned out amazing.

Pour over cereal and stir until cereal is coated.

Spread cereal on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon/sugar mixture. 

Bake for about 5 minutes, then flip with a spatula and bake for 3 more minutes, until cereal turns golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool completely, then break up and store in an airtight container.  Or eat it right now because it was yummy warm.  Look at them!

Blueberry Lemon White Chocolate Puppy Chow

Ingredients

• 1 box Chex™ blueberry flavored cereal
• 1 1/4 cups white vanilla baking chip
• 1/4 cup butter
• 4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I'm told fresh lemon juice is better than the bottled kind.)
• 2 cups powered sugar

Assemble Ingredients 

Measure out cereal and put in bowl.  The kids didn't get the right cereal, so ours was white chocolate and lemon without the blueberry.

In small microwavable bowl, microwave baking chips, butter, lemon peel and lemon juice uncovered on "high" 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth. Pour lemon mixture over cereal; stir until evenly coated.

Once coated, pour cereal mixture into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag. Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; gently shake until well coated. Spread evenly on parchment paper or waxed paper. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Store in airtight container.

Amanda is always happy.

I'm told these snacks are gluten free.  That opens up a whole lot of possibilities for some of you.  Enjoy!!