MckLinky Blog Hop

Welcome Blog Hoppers!

The theme of this week's hop is favorite recipes, so here is mine for

Banana Bread.

(Check out my giveaway while you are visiting!)

This is actually not my own photo, but looks the same as mine!

Ingredients:

3 or 4 overripe bananas (the nastier the better)

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2- 1 cup each of extras: chocolate chips, nuts etc. (whatever you like).

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 X 5 X 3-inch loaf pan. (Or you can use muffin tins if you are making muffins).

Place the bananas and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and "whip the bejesus out of them," about 2 or 3 minutes.

Add the butter, eggs, and vanilla, whipping well and scraping down the sides of the bowl before each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl; add the flour, salt, baking soda, and extras (nuts, chocolate chips etc.). My favorite combo is white chocolate chips with baking walnuts. I will typically add 1/2 walnuts and 1 cup white chocolate chips ( I LOVE them!)

Pour batter into the prepared pan and transfer to the oven. Bake until golden brown and firm in the center, about 1 hour. If making muffins, bake for about 15 minutes. (Baking times will vary so keep your eye out!)

Extra tips:

I usually prefer to make muffins because the amount of batter is too much for a standard bread pan (at least the one I have).

Add cream cheese frosting to the top for a delectable treat! MMMMMM!

To make it easier for you, I am including a printable document so you can print this recipe in a printer friendly format.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread

Buttons for Lily Soo

Thanks to Jen from Following the Footsteps for creating my new blog button! She is taking donations to help this family bring home an adopted baby, Lily Soo, from South Korea. In exchange for a $5.00 donation, Jen will design a button just for your blog! Every little bit counts and every donation will bring two loving parents that much closer to getting the child that they so badly want.

Click here to make your donation right now!

Please feel free to post a link in your blog and tell others about buttons for Lily Soo. The more people that know, the greater chance they have of meeting their goal to bring Lily Soo home and make her part of their family before her first birthday.

P.S. Don't forget to enter to win my first giveaway: 52 Great Art Projects for Kids. Simply Respond to this post and your name will be entered to win!

Motivation and my first giveaway!

I just did a literature review for my advanced educational psychology class on the effects that prizes and rewards have on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.

As a first grade teacher, I used LOTS of incentives, prizes, and rewards to get kids motivated in class. I learned however, that prizes can actually negatively affect students' intrinsic motivation, especially if they are rewarded for an activity that was already favored. If they are rewarded for an non-preferred activity, their motivation might increase, but most likely extrinsic motivation which means there is a reliance on the reward they will receive and their motivation to do the activity is only linked to getting the prize.

Much of the research promoted looking inwardly at teaching practices and lessons in order to make them more engaging and fitting to students' interests as opposed to introducing prizes and "bribery" to get kids focused and motivated. They also affirmed that praise has different, more positive, effects on intrinsic motivation than rewards, however it was dependent on what kind of praise and how the praise was given (always has to be complicated, never simple!) Praise should always be specific and praising students for their effort rather than their intelligence results in students being willing to try harder especially when an assignment/task is challenging.

If you are a classroom teacher, homeschool teacher, or a mom this question is for you:

Do you use rewards/prizes to get your students/kids motivated for certain activities? Have you found this to be effective in increasing their intrinsic motivation or are they just in it for the prizes?

If you feel like your students/kids are motivated without prizes, do you have any tips to share about your teaching strategies that grab kids' attention??

Because I love comments so much, I am going to try my first giveaway!

52 illustrated cards with great art project ideas for kids.

Small enough to fit in your purse!

How to enter: Write me a comment! Tell me that you are:

1. Becoming a follower

2. That you are going to blog about the giveaway and link to my blog

3. Answer the questions about motivating kiddos!

Please comment only on this post and every comment will be entered to win. The giveaway will end Wednesday July 22nd, so any comments up until that date are eligible.

Bloggy Book!

Have you ever thought about having a hard copy of your blog entries? I never did until I read Our Feet Are the Same's blog entry about her husband giving her a bound copy of her blog entries for her birthday.

How cool is that?

Interested? I sure am.

Click here to check it out.

It is not inexpensive, but not super outrageous. You have to enter in your blog address and then there are a few options regarding the cover color, adding a photo to the cover, and writing an inscription. Then you click and just wait a few minutes while it turns your blog into a book. You are able to view all the pages online and then choose if you want to order an electronic pdf copy for $2.95 or if you want to order a more expensive soft cover book or hardcover book. The price for mine was about $60 for the softcover and $70 for the hardcover, but the pricing is dependent on the number of pages.

A 20-page softcover Blog Book is just $14.95 -
Hardcover only $24.95. And extra pages are only 35 cents!

NEW! Get a PDF of your Blogbook for only $2.95

I did not actually order mine because I was thinking it would be cool to wait until my blogoversary which is coming up in August and then publish a whole year of blogging posts. You can also choose whether or not to include the comments that people made.

The only problem I ran into initially was that there was a feed setting that was preventing access, however when I changed the feed setting to "full" the site was then able to make the book. (Click on customize, then settings, site feed, and choose full in the drop down.)

I will definitely do this for the entries on my TeamToppel blog which will be a journal of our adventures living abroad in Germany for a few years and I think it will be cool to do for this blog as well so I can look back on my reflections of teaching and making new blog friends!

Doing the Happy Dance!

I found out this morning that my work permit is official! That means I can stop worrying about moving to Germany only to find out that it didn't go through and I am unemployed in a new country with nothing to do.

Woo hoo!

Organizing like MAD

On Tuesday I finished clearing all my belongings out of my classroom because the teacher that is taking over my room is pregnant, due next month, and she is anxious to get the room set up before she has the baby. I went to the school after class, loaded a ton of stuff in my little Prius, literally until I could not fit anything else, turned in my badge and key and then left after taking one last nostalgic look at the room....

Because I felt a little rushed to get everything out of the room, my packing was not really organized and lots of things were just in crates or bins and not really packed nicely in boxes. Today I had some time in the afternoon so I embarked upon "Project Organize all my Teacher Stuff." I opened up the boxes and took most of the stuff out so that I could repack by subject and types of materials. I made boxes of

• math supplies and curriculum books
• English Language Development materials and grammar type stuff with games for my ELL students
• writing and reading materials
• general classroom decoration stuff
• desk supplies
• calendar supplies

I tried to be very specific in labeling the boxes because most of them are going straight into storage and I want to be able to easily identify stuff that I might need to be shipped over in the future. I also organized my books and packed them by themes so that I have easy access to those as well. I grouped them by theme and then sorted books into fiction and non-fiction boxes. When I had a bunch of the same type I made sure to write the author or series on the outside of the box so I remember where they all are.

I narrowed it down to 4 boxes of books that I want to take with me because I am too paranoid to leave them in storage for three years or more. I figure eventually I will get to be a classroom teacher at FIS in which case I will definitely want my books! I can't take everything because I have a lot of teacher stuff, but the books are definitely coming with. Typically apartment buildings in Germany have a storage area on the bottom or top level where each apartment gets a little storage spot. The ones we saw were decent in size so I figure I can stash some teacher stuff so it's not like it will have to sit in my living room or anything!

Now, I have to start sorting the rest of my stuff to decide what goes to Germany and what stays in storage in Oregon. I am definitely not taking all of my kitchen/cooking stuff because:

1. Let's be honest, I don't cook that much and

2. The kitchen will probably be a lot smaller than what we have now and I won't have a large walk in pantry like I have now, so I won't have room to put all my stuff.

I love to bake and have a lot of baking supplies like muffin tins, cake pans, cookie cutters etc. etc. etc. I am torn over whether or not to bring them all. I am leaning towards no, but I don't want to get there and regret not bringing that stuff. I did hear that Germany does not have chocolate chips though which is a big disappointment. I guess in any event I won't be baking chocolate chip cookies...

I am also debating whether or not to bring my craft/art supplies. I have lots of rubber stamps, ink pads, and card making supplies as well as markers, crayons, colored pencils and stuff like that. I don't use those kinds of thinks frequently, but I do like to have the opportunity to make cute thank you cards or holiday notecards. I guess if I found a nice plastic container to put it all in then maybe it would seem very organized and easier to carry along. I know for sure that storage space is not abundant so I don't want to end up not having anywhere to put my stuff.

It is so hard to decide what stays and what goes. I definitely need to sort through my clothes and bring only the best stuff. I can't believe that all this needs to be done in like three weeks!

I am going home at the end of the month to see my family including my adorable little niece and my best friend, so that means 5 less days of packing/moving project time.

So much to do, so little time!