Playfully Learning is Delicious!

One of the great joys of having a pastry chef as an assistant is the wonderful baking that we get to do in class.  We have always cooked in our classroom, but it has a special flair this year, thanks to my assistant, Katherine.

She was even a good enough sport to wear her full uniform to class one day when she cooked with us.  The children were thrilled.

Following our field trip to the grocery store and hearing about how the bakers come in at 3am to start the baking, we pretended it was 3am in our classroom one day.

A mom wanted to come in and decorate holiday cookies with the children as that is their family tradition, and we also decided to make bread from scratch.  Our room turned into a bake shop for the day-actually two, as the bread is a two day process.

The children enjoyed measuring, pouring, counting and mixing.  They learned about the properties of yeast and how to knead.

The also learned just how many sprinkles one sugar cookie can hold.

I always use tongue depressors when spreading anything with children as it is just too darn hard not to lick the knife. This keeps the germs from spreading and the tongues from getting cut-everyone has their own and we just throw them away when finished.  They never dip into a community bowl with them; the butter, cream cheese or frosting is always put on their plates and then they use their own spreaders.

It was a delicious few days of learning though play!