Easter Fortune Cookies

What You Need:

• Refrigerated sugar cookie dough
• Egg shaped cookie cutter (you can make your own by cutting the rim of a tin can!)
• Can of cake frosting
• One or two squeeze tubes of frosting in Easter colors
• Parchment paper
• Fine point permanent marker

What You Do:

1. Following package directions, roll out your sugar cookie dough fairly thin—about 1/8”. Transfer it onto cookie sheets and bake until light golden brown.
2. While the cookies are baking and cooling, have your child pull out some parchment paper (available in the cooking supply section at most groceries, or at cooking supply stores; wax paper will also do in a pinch.) Cut it into strips, 2”x about 4”.
3. Remind your child that for many world religions, this holiday season celebrates the return of spring, and all its promise of new beginnings: new seedlings, good weather, new energy. Give him the marker and encourage him to write “good wish” fortunes for the folks he loves, whether in your family or in your community. Stand by for encouragement and guidance here…and encourage your second grader to practice his best writing while you're at it. Then fold the papers lengthwise twice, so that the final measurement is about 5/8”x4”, and set them aside.
4. By now the cookies should be cool and crisp. Taking two at a time, make a cookie “sandwich” by spreading frosting between them, and place the folded strip between the layers. Lay the strip diagonally so that most of it is inside the cookie, but do allow at least ½” to stick out, just like in a regular “fortune cookie.”
5. Use the squeeze tubes of frosting to squeeze decorations onto the top egg; and if you've got a specially targeted “fortune,” you can have your child write that person's name in frosting, too.
6. Let everything dry and set…and then enjoy! Celebrate a season of renewal and hope…and be sure to applaud your second grader's growing literacy while you're at it.