Bat Pancakes - Halloween Breakfast or Snack

My eight year old used to be obsessed with bats.  One year, he chose the vampire bat as his animal to adopt at Christmas time!  So, even though he isn't as obsessed as he once was, I still like to make batty treats this time of year.

We began with a snack of bat pancakes, a scoop of ice cream in a pumpkin silicone cup, a little whipped cream, and some bat and pumpkin sprinkles.  YUM!  I made the bats out of chocolate pancakes.  This is the recipe I used (SO good!!):

Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter or 2 tablespoons margarine, melted
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Directions:
• 1.  In a small bowl, combine milk, egg and butter; whisk until blended.
• 2.  In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda and salt; mix well.
• 3.  Add milk mixture; whisk just until dry ingredients are moistened.
• 4.  Heat griddle over medium heat until hot.
• 5.  For each pancake, pour scant 1/4 cup batter into griddle.
• 6.  Cook 1-2 minutes or until batter is set around edges.

7.  Carefully turn over pancake; cook 1-2 minutes or until pancakes are cooked through.

I cut the pancakes with a bat shaped cookie cutter.

After the snack, we played a game of bat roll and color addition.  This is perfect practice for my six year old.

Each child had a page with bats and a bat cave numbered from two to twelve.  They took turns rolling the dice and would color in the bat or cave with the corresponding number.  The first person to color in all of the numbered spots was the winner.  They had a lot of fun with this game!  You can find the printable bat page to play this game by clicking here.

We have a lot of favorite bat books, but here are a few that we seem to revisit:

• Stellaluna by Janell Canon - a baby fruit bat is separated from her mother and taken in by a family of birds; she must try to live like a bat, but luckily she eventually finds bats just like her
• Bats at the Ballgame by Brian Lies - a group of bats have fun at the ball field
• Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies - a group of bats enjoy a summer night at the beach
• Bats at the Library by Brian Lies - a group of bats are thrilled when the librarian forgets to close the window and they can enjoy some great books
• Bat's Big Game by Eugenia Nobati - a great lesson about sticking with your team whether you are winning or losing can be found in this book about a bat who wants to win.  This also introduces a little science - is a bat an animal or a bird? 
• Five Little Bats Flying in the Night by Steve Metzger - a rhyming book that counts down from five, featuring five little bats getting into mischief