Ziploc® brand bags with Easy Open Tabs – great for cookies, cards, figurines and more #ZiplocBackToSchool #Ad

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine and part of #ZiplocBackToSchool #CollectiveBias.

The air in the house is giddy. The children are excited to start school; we’re pumped for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is life getting back to a schedule of sorts. We’ve done the back-to-school shopping. Even for kids going into preschool and kindergarten there are lots of things to purchase at our local Kroger. One item that was on our list was Ziploc® brand bags with Easy Open Tabs; but not just for the purposes of school lunches, although we did get some specifically for a new cookie recipe we created.  

When you have lots of small pieces to something the box will invariably get crushed or disappear. Our youngest child loves cards and that is A-OK with us because they are a fabulous learning tool. He tries to open card decks that are brand new just to make a mess out of them. For him it’s akin to opening a new book just to get that ‘new book’ smell.

 

Unfortunately, this leaves behind a trail of cards, all mixed up like a gigantic island of misfit toys, except replaced by dinosaur, counting or sight word cards. We (try) to solve this issue by putting the cards in their own Ziploc® brand bags with Easy Open Tabs. In the short term it cleans up the area and once a month we have a card cleaning party where we’ll re-sort all of the cards into their correct Ziploc® brand bags with Easy Open Tabs.

 

We started the bag system for the cards with our first child, Jake who is now five and out of the card era. One thing he is bringing with him into his next stage of toys are the bags. Much to the chagrin of rogue Klingons and their captured Bird of Prey warship, we store all of our building block toys in Ziploc® brand bags with Easy Open Tabs. The sets fit into the Ziploc® brand Storage bags with Easy Open Tabs, which are available in quart, half-gallon and gallon sizes.

With the tabs being different colors, it’s also super easy for young hands to seal them. Opening them is simple too because of the Easy Open Tabs, you can easily locate an opening and pull the bag apart. Can I get a show of hands if you’ve ever had to lick your fingers in order to open a bag?

Bonus: if you need to get your lunch or toys organized then you can do it at Kroger and save some cash. From August 9-30 you can save .50 off of the normal retail price on Ziploc® brand Sandwich bags with Easy Open Tabs 40 and 90 count, as well as Ziploc® brand Snack bags with Easy Open Tabs 90 count.

When they’re not separating the Allosaurus from the alphabet, we also use them for cookies. With school starting we wanted to make a new cookie to get the kids off to school on a sweet note. We decided to make Strawberry Chip Cookies. It may seem complex at first, but it’s actually quite simple and tasty.

Ingredients:

2 cups of granulated sugar

1 pound of fresh strawberries (hulled and halved)

1 bag of chocolate chips

1 large lemon

1 roll of cookie dough

Steps

1. Zest the lemon, then cut it in half and juice-put all of that into a saucepan on low.
2. Add the sugar and strawberries, stir frequently for about 20 minutes until the sugar melts.
3. Once it melts pour the strawberry liquid into a bowl and chill.
4. Mix cookie dough and chips together, bake according to instructions.
5. Remove from the oven and drizzle with the strawberry mixture. The liquid will add a constant taste of strawberries. If you’ll be eating them immediately then add some strawberry chunks on top of the cookies.

For the purpose of our school lunch we’ll simply cut a cookie in half and put them in a bag. When we have them at home, we top it off with a strawberry and it is delicious.

So that’s how we organize our cards, rogue dinosaurs and building block sets. It’s also how we treat the kids (and us!) to a new cookie.  What is your back to school ritual? Is there a go-to treat that you make to show the kids how special they are? If you’ve got one, please leave it in the comments as we are always game for new ideas.