Homemade Granola Bars

Granola reminds me of early morning hikes, field trips and play dates. It is an all around healthy, easy, guilt-free comfort food. Its also extremely versatile. My kids love to help in the kitchen so this is a recipe they can do alone without much interference. It involves measuring, self awareness, and critical thinking. I ask the following questions to keep them engaged and learning.

What ingredients do you think will make you full? Why?

Which ingredients are sweet?

Why honey instead of sugar?

Which ingredient did we use they least of? The most of?

Once you start asking your students questions more questions will naturally come about as you explore what you are doing and why. Remember it doesn’t have to be a well planned lesson to be a lesson. Look for ways to teach your children as you go about your regular activities.

This is our go to recipe but feel free to sub out ingredients and please let us know your tasty combinations below.

Homemade Granola

3 cups quick oats                                                                                                                                     1/2 cup honey (replace with Aguava to make vegan)                                                                     1 cup peanut butter                                                                                                                               3 tbs protein powder                                                                                                                             1/2 cup chopped walnuts                                                                                                                       1/2 cup sunflower seeds                                                                                                                       1/2 cup raisins                                                                                                                                         1/2 cup dried cranberries

Mix all ingredients. Pack down into a lined square pan and refrigerate for 3 hours. Cut into squares and enjoy!

** If you want granola but not in bar form you can make these into balls or cut the amount of peanut butter and honey to make it more like a crumble.

 

Math Baskets

Math is SJ’s favorite subject so I’ve created baskets to keep her busy when she is bored or just wants something to do. We have two math baskets since all the activities wont fit in one. 

The first basket has flash cards that we use pretty often with KJ (3). We have him name the numbers in English and Spanish and put them in order. The card game Jump which is a cross between phase ten and rummy this is great to teach kids sequential order, counting by 2’s, 3’s and 5’s. 

SJ enjoys puzzles so we house the latest dollar store puzzle in the basket. 

 We use base ten blocks to teach the kids place value. They like to use the blocks to build (even though they aren’t supposed to) but since we taught them to write out numbers for the other to decode with the blocks they love it! The last items in this basket are the clothespin games. 

You can read about the instructions here. 

If the first basket was geared more toward SJ (5) this one is geared more towards KJ. It’s focus is fine motor skills. The Lacing Shaper is a $1 find from Target. The objective is to lace a shoelace like string through a hole punched robot. I keep a folder in this basket of tangram pictures along with a baggie holding the shapes. 

The baggie also hold fraction circles. 

We have not formally began teaching fractions but the kids love playing with them and can answer questions about how many it takes to make a whole. 

Geoboards have been a life saver for me. I hardly ever get rebuttal when I tell the kids to go get a geoboard. Finally I let the kids use yarn and beads to practice making patterns. All of these activities keep them busy while teaching them important math skills. 

I hope you find these activities useful!