Monday Made It: Back to School Essay Writing and Overnight Oats

Today I am going to link with 4th Grade Frolics for "Monday Made It."

I have not linked up in a very long time.  I am not the most crafty person.  I prefer to make things on the computer.

I do like to try new recipes though.  I have a love/hate relationship with food.  I love to eat.  I try to eat healthy. I like variety, but I do not always enjoy cooking.  I do pretty well with dinners and lunches.  For dinner, I usually cook several things on Sunday and we eat leftovers throughout the week.  That is how I manage cooking with my crazy schedule of work and graduate school. Lunches I usually pack bento lunches for myself during the school year.  This helps me get in some variety and makes me be intentional with what I eat. Breakfast I really struggle.  So like any good teacher in the summer I have been looking through Pinterest for breakfast ideas.  I try to avoid gluten and dairy when I can, so I have been looking for some gluten free and dairy free breakfast ideas. I came across several recipes for Overnight Oats.

I tried this recipe first from SugerGlueMom for Strawberries Overnight Oats.  They look great, but personally I found the steelcut oats bitter without being cooked.  (The steel cut oats are delicious if you cook them overnight in the crockpot.)

I found some other recipes with rolled oats, so I decided to try that instead of the steelcut oats.  Here is an example of a recipe I found.

They look pretty in mason jars, so now I want to get some mason jars.  I made my overnight oats with 1/2 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup almond milk.  In the morning I added some stevia and fresh peaches.  I thought it was good and had a cold cereal taste.  You could add more milk if you wanted it creamier.

I had this idea last year with my students to make sure they wrote at least one essay every month.  I wanted them to have choices.  Within a three month time span, I wanted them to have done at least one narrative essay, one persuasive essay, and one informational essay.  We did this routine in December and January.  The kids really liked the menu I made and having choices.  Like many of my ideas now that I am working and going to grad school both I never finished making all of the months, so that is one of my goals this summer. I finished making a Back to School Essay Writing  this week for the months of August and September. It has an essay menu, graphic organizers, rubrics, scaffolded practice for drafting and revising, and publishing paper.  I am going to be working on finishing the other months.  Now, that I am moving to middle school I need to work on making a middle school version.

This last one is more of a tried it than a made it.  For the last couple months, I have been getting familiar with essential oils.  I am trying to learn as much as I can about their uses.  Well, being that it is summer and Texas I managed last week to get sunburned and eaten alive by bugs.  I have about 17 bug bites between both of my legs.  Bites swell up to about the size of a quarter on me.   I put Lavender Oil on my bug bites and within 30 minutes they had gone back down to just little red dots.  The Lavender helped with the itching, too.  I also used the Lavender Oil on my sunburn.

I had one stubborn bug bite behind my knee that was completely red and inflamed because of its location.  I tried the Purify oil blend on it as well.  It helped some.  I finally had to give in and use Hydrocortisone once just to get the inflammation down. Since then though if any of the bites itch, I just put a little Lavender oil and they are good. 

Have you made or tried anything new this week?