With Mother’s Day only around the corner I thought that cake would be the perfect topic for today! This French Yogurt Cake is just perfect for small hands to bake. It even fits into the Junior and Senior Infant Maths Curriculum Objectives. Under the measures strand children are expected to:

• develop an understanding of the concept of weight through exploration, handling of objects and use of appropriate vocabulary
• compare and order objects according to weight
• estimate and weigh in non-standard units
• select and use appropriate non-standard units to weigh objects

What is a “non-standard units of measure”  I hear you ask?! Jugs, cups, buckets… anything that doesn’t involve the use of a weight scales. In this cake we will measure out all of the ingredients using an empty yogurt carton. After that it is as easy as 1, 2, 3…

Chocolate Chip Yogurt Cake

• 1 pot of natural yogurt
• 1  yogurt pot  of chocolate chips
• 1  yogurt pot of flavourless oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2  yogurt pots of sugar
• 3 yogurt pots of self-raising flour
• 3 eggs

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Prepare a 2lb loaf tin. You need to  grease and flour it. This is probably a job for the adult helper
3. Empty  1 pot of yogurt into large mixing bowl.
4. Use the yogurt pot to measure 1 pot of oil and add to  it the bowl. 
5. Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract.
6. Wash and dry the yogurt pot. Use it to measure out your flour and sugar.Add 2 pots of sugar and 3 pots of flour to the bowl.Gently whisk.
7. Break 3 eggs into the bowl and then whisk.
8. Stir in 1 pot of chocolate chips.
9. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 30-45 minutes.

Check the cake after 30 minutes but no sooner or it will implode!

If the cake is not yet cooked return to the oven and check in intervals of 5 minutes.

*If it starts to brown but still is not cooked loosely cover it with tinfoil and then return to the oven. This could  just be a problem with my oven!!

Allow to cool if you can. I never do!!!

This recipe has been “tested” and ” approved” by a 3 year old friend of mine. It really is such an easy cake to make. It is not even very messy.  If you are worried just put a tea-towel under the mixing bowl and throw it in the wash afterwards.

There are so much learning opportunities in this yogurt cake. You will be talking about quantities and measuring them out using non-standard units. Your child will be counting out ingredients (1, 2, 3). Sequencing , which is part of the History curriculum, and following instructions is another important part of baking. There is also the fine motor control of measuring, pouring and mixing.

Exact accuracy is not required for this  chocolate chip yogurt cake. It is most forgiving!!! A little more or a little less of any ingredient will not have much of an effect.

It is a great basic cake mixture to play around it. Omit the choc. chips for these variations:

Lemon cake:  Omit vanilla extract. Add the zest of 2 lemons and drizzle with lemony icing sugar.

Marble Cake: Taken out a scoop of the mixed batter and added 2 heaped dessert spoons of cocoa. Pour  some of the “plain batter” into your tin. Add a scoop of “chocolate”. Add some vanilla… Alternate the flavours and then gently “swirl” the mixture in the tin using the handle of a spoon/knife.

Pear and vanilla: chopped tinned pears into cubes. Add the plain batter and bake.

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh

This is hands down the funniest book I have ever read! It isn’t strictly speaking a Christmas story. The fact that it is about a donkey prompts me to read it at this time of year. I only purchased it last year but it already seems like Christmas classic to me. 

The Wonky Donkey very funny, cumulative story.  Each page tells us something new about the donkey until we end up with a:

“spunky, hanky-panky, cranky, stinky dinky, lanky, honky tonky, winky wonky donkey”    

This book is guaranteed to have children in fits of uncontrollable laughter! My class last year begged me to read it over and over and over again. I can hardly wait to read it with my class next week.

You can purchase The Wonky Donkey from Book Depository at 4.74 Euro

You can download The Wonky Donkey App for your iPad 

Happy Christmas,

Miss Mernagh

Well, it’s that time of year again! I thought that I would share some of my favourite Christmas stories with you this week while you still have time to purchase them. Today’s story is about the real message of  Christmas that all too often gets lost under wrapping paper and tinsel.

Jesus’ Christmas Party is an absolute treasure! It tells the story of Christmas from the Inn Keeper’s perspective. Needless to say he is less than impressed with the constant interruption to his sleep. Some of the one liners in the book are just hilarious.

It is wonderful to see how all the characters in the book come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Inn Keepers hear melts when he sees the infant Jesus in the manger.

My class are performing this story as their Jesus’ Christmas Party Christmas Play this year. It will be magical…

Jesus’ Christmas Party is available from bookdepository.com for only 7.49 Euro with free delivery.

Merry Christmas,

Miss Mernagh

Those of you in the Wexford area might be interested in attending a talk that I am giving to mark National Parents Week 2012! I am so, so excited to have been asked by the Wexford County Childcare Committee.

I will be covering reading fluency from Pre-School to 6th Class. During the course of the hour you will learn:

• how to choose an appropriate level of story for your child to read
• my top tips on how to sound out words ( including “digraphs”)
• the importance of Dolch Words/ High Frequency Words
• reading strategies for 2nd class +
• the importance of reading for 20min a day
• how to make reading a habit
• lists of my favourite websites, authors and where I source my books

I hope to see some of you at the talk. Please tell your friends if they live in the area!

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh

I am so excited to be returning to school. I have been busy, busy, busy setting up my classroom. It is really starting to come together.

Thanks to my friend Anne Marie I have loads of super cute Ikea storage boxes to keep everything in order. I am picking up more of them tomorrow. Apparently she is helping to facilitate some OCD tendencies?! Hopefully it will make life easier for both myself and the wonderful SNA assisting in my room this year.

Here is a peak at the Bulletin Board outside my room. It was super difficult to get a good shot as the corridor is narrow.

As you can see I “tagged” each owl with a child’s name. I just need to add my “Momma” owl and we are pretty much done.

I don’t usually post photos of my room but I wanted to show you all how “cute” it turned out

Are you ready for school? I am praying that my interactive whiteboard will be repaired early next week!!! All of my classroom preparation over the summer is in a digital format. I have tonnes of resources all on “pause” until it is repaired. It will be an interesting first day without all of those resources. Looks like I will have to go “old school” and make cardboard flashcards etc. Yikees!

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh

I mentioned in my last post that I would be delighted to modify or create classroom rule posters for you. Here are some that have been requested.  I hope you like them!

I was asked to create a poster that showed the value of sharing. Here are three variations on the theme:

Using kind words  was a little tricky to find graphics for. I hope that you are pleased with the results. I am

Click here to download 

I have created a new PDF containing all of my classroom rules including these new ones.

Keep your requests coming.  I love hearing from you guys! Email me at info@missmernagh.com.

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh

It’s hard to believe that it is almost that time of year again! I am taking a brief respite from my “preparing your child for school series”. It is not only children who are preparing for school but the teachers too!

I decided to spruce up my “Classroom Rules” posters for the coming year. I spent an absolute age on these! I  really hope that you like them and find them to be useful

My classroom theme for this year is centred on “Owls” hence the owl on the first poster. I have the perfect puppet and lots more owl themed goodies all waiting to be laminated. I am really starting to get excited!

Do you have a theme for your classroom every year? Last year I did “Miss Mernagh’s Superstars!”. This years is….”Senior Infants is a Hoot!!!”. Don’t you just love it?! I would love to hear from you if you have a theme. There’s always next year

Click here to download Classroom Rules Posters!

I created these  classroom rules posters for my own personal use so the term “she” is used in the last image. If you would like this with the word “he” please drop me an email at info@missmernagh.com and I will send it straight to your inbox. How about that for service

Similarly, if there is a rule that you would like added let me know and I will create it for you. It would drive me nuts to post an odd poster on my wall. I would have to have the set matching.

Here is a quick refresher on some key points with regard to classroom rules:

•  There are two types of rules: positive and negative . Positive rules focus on what a pupil should do. The focus of these rules are to encourage pupils to adopt suitable and appropriate behaviours. Negative rules state what should not be done and their main focus in on  and focus is on misbehavior. Positive rules encourage use of positive interactions, while negative rules focus on punishment (Bicard, 2000)
  
• Classroom expectations must be clear, concise, and explicit so that students can understand them and how to behave in order to follow them (Quinn et al., 2000).
• An optimal number of rules is between 3-5.  (Bicard, 2000; Heins, 1996; McGinnis, Frederick, & Edwards, 1995; Short, Short & Blanton, 1994)
• Classroom rules should be stated in the “positive“, presented visually and consistently enforced.
• Classroom rules should focus on specific observable behaviors rather than nonspecific generalities (Kostewicz, Ruhl & Kubina Jr, 2008)

Have fun,

Miss Mernagh

P.S:Graphics
The border, owl and star graphics are all DJInkers, the children with their hands raiseD is discoveryschool.com and the rest are Microsoft Word.