Cooking up a Great Year

I'm super excited to be teaming up with 24 other bloggers this week to bring you back to school activities and awesome recipes! So get ready to find lots of fun activities and new recipes to start your school year off right! 

If you're like me, when school starts, things are BUSY! I'm always looking for something I can cook in my Crockpot that will get my family several meals (dinners and leftovers) but most importantly provides us with something reasonably healthy and a hot meal!  This is one of our favorites!  

Meatball Subs:

Start with these meatballs from Sam's Club. (I'm sure you can get another kind somewhere else, but these are our favorites!)

Throw them on the Crockpot  I don't measure them...I just throw them in.

Throw in 2 jars of sauce!  This is the kind I use. It's low sodium....and we're all about that!

Cook on low all day.  Ignore the sides of my Crockpot...but this is what they look like when they are done.

Next you need some buns.  These are the kind we use.  It's hard to find a healthy bun really, but these aren't too bad.

Put your meatballs in the bun.  The serving size is 4, but you could use more or less.  I add a little extra sauce.

Add some cheese to the top.

Stick in the Toaster oven and toast until its melted.  We keep it classy and eat on paper plates in our house. 

And that's how you make a meatball sub friends! I had some fruit with this because that was plenty of calories.  We also boil noodles so we can have spaghetti with leftover meatballs.  This is perfect for lunches! We just recently started eating gluten free ones. 

Seriously, it tastes the same...but don't overcook it! 

Now for some activities that are meatball related! 

This is a book we all know and love, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! 

If you don't have the book, here's a read aloud. It's kind of long though!

There's also some fun songs!

All of those go nicely with my freebie for this fun hop:

This freebie sampler gives you a few handouts to practice uppercase and lowercase letters as well as beginning sounds with your students all with a fun Spaghetti and Meatballs theme!  Let your students listen to the story and sing the fun songs and use these as a follow up.  

If you want more fun activities to complete with your students using this theme, grab this pack:

It includes fun games and worksheets to practice beginning of the year skills! 

Now, it's time for a giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

But that's not all! There are lots of other awesome blogs to read, freebies to grab, and recipes to look at.  Click the chef's hat to go to your next top.  Happy Hopping!!