Christmas Cookie Club

If you walked into the elementary school on a Tuesday afternoon around 4 pm between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you were greeted with the sweet smell of holiday baking! Though school dismisses at 3 pm, Eastern Christian continues its educational program through our outstanding After School Program, which offers a variety of exciting activities for students to participate in, such as homework help, music lessons, and extracurricular clubs.

One recent, popular activity was Christmas Cookie Club, held on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30-4:30 pm for 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. This new club was originally intended for up to 32 students, 20 from Preschool/ECES, and 12 middle school students. However, the response in sign ups was so overwhelmingly positive that we saw the need to expand the club offerings in order to accommodate more students! Several enthusiastic EC teachers and parents stepped up to make our Christmas Cookie Clubs a huge success:

• Mrs. Sarah VanderWall and Mrs. Kelly King led a group of 20 PreK/ECES students 
• Mrs. Sarah Olsen led a group of 12 ECES students
• Miss Katelyn Tilli led a group of 12 ECES students
• Mrs. Courtney Dyksen led a group of 12 ECES students
• Mrs. Nikki Stupienski and Mrs. Christina Strange led a group of 16 ECMS students

Yes if you did the math, you realize we had 72 students signed up for Christmas Cookie clubs! And unfortunately, we had other children still on the waitlist. But, we value small teacher to student ratios at Eastern Christian, and our After School programs operate the same way. We kept our group sizes manageable for our staff and also ensured that the students involved had plenty of hands on opportunities and enough supplies to enjoy the experience! Though each group made different treats, some of their creations included: chocolate chip cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, Rice Krispie wreaths, Christmas bark, melting moments, Oreo truffles, and sugar cookies. The goodies were frozen each week and then split between participants at the end so that they could bring the sweets home to share with friends and family for the holidays. (Though I’m sure they taste tested a few along the way!) 

Christmas Cookie Club was certainly a fun way for students to learn about and practice reading recipes, measuring ingredients, working together, being creative, sharing with others, and of course, to celebrate Jesus’ birthday! It looks like this club will be back by popular demand next year! Merry Christmas!

By: Jenna Beverly

Jenna is a preschool teacher at Eastern Christian School.

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