Urbandale Middle School Students Invited To 'Take Over' Snookies Malt Shop With Their Own Creations

Press release from the Urbandale Community School District:

November 1, 2021

Thank you to the Des Moines Register and We Are Iowa WOI 5 for joining UMS students at Snookies Malt Shop on October 29!

Urbandale Middle School (UMS) students in the Extended Learning Program (ELP) took their “first quintile choice project” to the next level by pitching new ice cream topping recipes to local ice cream shops. Students were surprised and delighted when they received a response from the famous Snookies Malt Shop on Beaver Avenue. Snookies has invited UMS ELP students to “take over” their shop for a behind-the-scenes look at everything that goes into creating and producing flavors, as well as giving students a chance to whip up their ideas for new creations with available ingredients. Although closed for the season, students will have a private tour of the shop on Friday, October 29, 2021.

“I love that Snookies would support and trust a group of kids to come in and sample our creations in their shop,” said UMS ELP student Will Schaefer. “I also love that Urbandale supports ELP and gives us the opportunity to branch out with our projects.”

Earlier this fall, students in Mrs. Choudhury’s ELP class determined their “choice” project would focus on ice cream. Students worked together to create ideas for new toppings and researched local ice cream shops to pitch their recipes. Students then made their creations and conducted taste testing with family and friends outside of school. Once students perfected their recipes, students brought their mixtures to school in order for ELP classmates to sample each one and provide feedback.

“When I started this project I didn’t think that I would come up with an amazing idea for my project,” said UMS ELP student Sophia Bootman. “I’m glad that I am able to do projects I enjoy such as breakfast and ice cream and working with the community.”

Flavors created by UMS ELP students include:

• Maple Marvel “Creamy, with a pop of maple syrup flavoring and a spark of cinnamon roll bits. Crumbles of waffle cookies that crunch in your mouth. Caramel floods into your mouth creating an ocean of goodness in your mouth. Enjoy this delicious ice cream in the morning as your breakfast.”
• Halloween Blast “Halloween Blast has a base of vanilla ice cream with a crunchy feeling from the sprinkles. Then, a mouthful of tasty mini M&Ms!”
• Rainbow Rockstar “Enjoy the colorful, sweet, and delicious ice cream that melts in your mouth. You can experience a chewy sensation of different flavors.”
• Cookie Crumble “Vanilla ice cream base with a whole lot of crunch. Enjoy eating animal crackers, fudge stripe cookies, mini Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and cookie dough all in one sundae! Enjoy the sensation of all that delicious crunch in one bite!”

Throughout the project students strengthened their collaboration skills, learned how to provide constructive criticism when sampling flavors, and learned how to pitch an idea to businesses by writing formal letters and addressing envelopes.

“We learned to write a formal letter and to cooperate together better. We also learned to give good criticism,” said UMS ELP student Tisha Alex. “Once we got the response, I became incredibly excited and happy. This was a new experience for me because I don’t usually do this kind of thing.”

“I liked being able to make my own creation and help write a proposal to the ice cream shops. In this project I learned how to take and give others constructive criticism, which was kind of hard for me but I learned,” said UMS ELP student Leo Morocho. “Some of it was kind of confusing, but I feel as if I got the hang of it quickly. I’m glad I had the opportunity to take part in this project.”

Snookies will also be open for a special Halloween event from 3:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 30, 2021. All children wearing a costume will get a free spooktacular kids cone. While the Snookies menu will be limited, there will still be many favorite Snookies’ treats.

This press release was produced by the Urbandale Community School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.