Lucky Charm Pancakes

Years ago my first grade teacher friend and I made lucky charm pancakes with the kids. We wanted to make them a rainbow stack of pancakes. Ya, don't try that unless you are at your house with maybe five kids max lol. Making all the colors of the rainbow pancakes for 40+ kids is not an easy task lol. We ended up giving up and they got two different colors.

Fast forward five or so years and I just make funfetti pancakes with the kids.

This is the kind I use. You can find it at Walmart. You could really use any kind of mix, but if you are doing it at school I would suggest any that is 'just add water'. I probably would use just add water with my own kids at home too, considering I use it for myself as well lol.

I have portioned it out individually before, but this year I portioned it out for four tables. I did a bowl of pancake mix for each table and then a small cup of water for each kid. I was trying to portion out the water correctly, but it turned into a hot mess because the cups were all leaking...so I just decided to give them all a little water and if I needed to add more water or mix I could at the end.

They took turns passing it around to mix. We do things like this a lot so they have learned to be patient, share, problem solve etc. It does take a lot of modeling and helping when you first get started, but it's really cute when you here them come up with methods like 'let's start here and move around in a circle' or when they start counting and each person gets ten seconds. When they do this without prompting you legit feel like you accomplished something because they are learning how to be a person in society and I love it!

As you can see the table in the back is just waiting for their turn. They had their own bowl too, but they are just checking out their surroundings. Just love them.

I have zero pictures of them helping me with actually MAKING the pancakes because I am sweating at this point and need to focus! I did come up with a genius plan this year. Last year I would pour the pancakes and wake until they started getting those bubbles then call two kids up and show them the bubbles and then teach them to flip and then let them flip alone (with me right there), but this year I thought of something brilliant on a whim. I made two pancakes on a very low setting then turned off the griddle. I let them come up and practice on those cooked pancakes with flipping. I did hand over hand if they had never flipped a pancake and then let them do it. If they knew I let them show me their skills. :) This took off a lot of the stress of the griddle being hot and all that. 

This still got to see me cooking the pancakes, but they were not allowed to approach the table within 3 feet lol. While I was cooking the pancakes they were working on some things that we needed to get done. We do book buddies with the second graders so I made enough for them and their book buddies. When their book buddies came over they decorated the pancakes with whipped cream and lucky charms. They look up to their book buddies so much so it was super cute. Once they were done, they did a how to writing. My kindergartens explained to their buddies how we made the pancakes and the process. Then they worked together to do the writing piece.

We had a great time and it is a bonus that some of the kids I had in Kindergarten get to come back in my room again during book buddies. :)