Classroom Cooking 101

I do a LOT of cooking in my classroom. I'm very fortunate to have a kitchen attached to my classroom. Some teachers find cooking to be a daunting task, but here are some tips I've amassed over the last seven years that make things much easier! 

1. Preparation is key

Look over your recipe the night before. Make sure you have absolutely everything you need: all the ingredients, bowls, spoons, mixers, etc. It can be disastrous to get halfway through a recipe with your little ones and realize you've forgotten something important!

Here are all my supplies laid out, apples already peeled and cut!

2. Prep as much as possible before

For example, if your recipe calls for 6-7 apples peeled and sliced thin, make sure that is done before you start! You will not hold your students attention if you have to sit there and peel and slice them all in front of them! I'm lucky that my kids go to their arts classes first thing in the morning so I prep as much as possible then. I also make sure to have my recipe written out on chart paper. I like to leave blank spaces to make it interactive and so the kids can follow along and help me fill it in as we go. I also always have a student copy for them to fill out. This keeps them engaged. 

My recipe written out on chart paper and ready to go

3. Involve your students as much as possible

I already mentioned having them follow along and fill in their own recipe, but if there is mixing, measuring or pouring to be done - let them help! They take such pride in being teacher's helpers. 

one of my sweeties helps mix, while the rest follow along with their own recipes on white boards.

Our recipe after we filled it all in. The kids help sound out the missing words.

4. Take advantage of teachable moments

There is so much kids can learn from cooking. I always start by talking about recipes - what is on it? (title, ingredients, steps) What does it show us how to do? (cook or bake something) Can we skip steps? (no!) Why not? (your final product won't turn out right!) Should kids ever touch the oven? (No! This is a job for grownups, ovens get very hot and children can get hurt). 

One of the students recipe, after it's been filled in.

5. Always plan for clean up

A mess is going to be inevitable. No matter how hard you try to contain it, there will always be a mess when you're cooking with kids. My solution for this is to finish the recipe, get it in the oven, then send the kids off to do an activity while you clean. The key here is to make sure the activity is something they can do INDEPENDENTLY. They can work on it without needing your help, and you can clean up while still keeping an eye on them and making sure they are staying on track. This gives you time to sweep up crumbs, wash out dishes, pans, utensils, etc. 

My students worked on labeling an apple's parts while I cleaned up.

7. Lastly, always try to find a literary connection

For example, I always preface our apple pie baking by reading "The Apple Pie Tree." We talk about what happens to an apple tree in different seasons, and the steps the sisters when through to make their pie. Then when we are baking, the kids can make text-to-self connections. This also helps put everyone on a level playing field with what will be happening, even if they have never baked an apple pie before. Background knowledge makes a big difference in connections and cementing information in their little brains. Take advantage of it whenever you can! 

And that's it! It really can be a painless, fun experience for you and the kids! I'm currently working on a unit entitled "Kids in the Kitchen" that will be full of my favorite classroom recipes, literary and math common core connections, and more tips! I hope to have it done soon! 

An apple a day.....

Whew! It is sure a challenge to fit in all our normal fun stuff with all this new common core stuff! Here's some of the apple stuff we did this year, though it's only a fraction of what we did last year. You can check out last year's posts HERE and HERE. 

We started by learning about Johnny Appleseed. We made a character map all together, then the kids made their own (sorry no picture). 

Then we tasted a red apple and described it using our five senses. The kids also filled out their own.

This is part of my Johnny Appleseed mini unit

Then we tried yellow and green apples too. We graphed which was our favorite and analyzed our data. Tree graph idea is from Deanna Jump's apple unit. The graph is from my Johnny Appleseed Mini Unit. 

We also taste tested apple juice and applesauce, and graphed which we liked best. This is also from Deanna's apple unit. 

There were a few other things we did that I don't have pictures of - like sequencing apple life cycles, labeling apple parts, and learning how apples get from the orchard to our supermarkets. 

But probably the kids favorite was when we baked and ate our own apple pies! I'm going to be back tomorrow with more pie pictures and some tips on baking in the classroom, but for now I'll just share a few pictures of our apple pies! 

It was a delicious week!

Next week we're moving on to Christopher Columbus......

Apples! Part 2 & Scarecrows

Monday, September 26th was Johnny Appleseeds Birthday! My kids all got to be apple planting frontiersmen with these cute hats made from foil and construction paper. I got the idea for these after seeing the ones that oriental trading sells. I didn't want to shell out the money, so I made my own!

To celebrate Johnny's Birthday we taste tested red, yellow, and green apples. Then we made this cute tree graph inspired by Mrs. Jump's Apple Unit. We recorded our data when we were done.

Also from Mrs. Jump's unit, we made this cute apple art project/poem.

We also made these cute stand up Johnny's. Don't you love the colors kids use?

This week and last week we learned this cute song about apples. Click HERE to get a free copy.

We ended the day watching Disney's American Legends, which has a section on Johnny Appleseed. Ever wonder what 40 kids crammed on one carpet looks like? This:

Here's another cute idea from my teammate Mrs. Gill - apple prints! This is best saved for a day you have a parent volunteer :) Slice an apple horizontally and make sure it is exactly even. Dip it lightly in paint then stamp on the paper to show the seed star.

Later in the week we ended our apple unit by baking an apple pie together as a class! This was a great lesson in reading a recipe, learning about fractions, following directions and baking! The kids loved helping make it, and even more they enjoyed eating it!! I made a fill in the blank recipe page for the kids to fill out as we read our recipe together. You can get it HERE.

Just a little tip - this year instead of buying all the apples ourselves, we asked each family to donate one apple. We didn't need to spend our own money for any of the activities we did! I got so many I had a whole bag extra.

This week we also tackled scarecrows. My kids were so excited to see we had a new addition to our classroom this week:

We made paper plate scarecrows for our bulletin board. I initially saw this cute idea in an Oriental Trading magazine, but again I didn't want to shell out my money for the kits so I made my own patterns to make them.
Don't you love how they all have their own hairstyle?

I made a sight word reader focusing on scarecrows that we read first together, then independently. You can get it at my TPT store HERE. 

We also did a directed art drawing of a scarecrow. I saw this idea on pinterest. I'm definitely not an art teacher, but I think I did a pretty good job describing shape, perspective and line. The kids art turned out great!

We also made this scarecrow book as we continued to practice recognizing our color words.

The kids loved this little scarecrow song to the tune of "Green Speckled Frogs" Click HERE to get your free copy.

If I hadn't gotten so busy this week I had planned to make these scarecrow cupcakes for my kids:

Since i ran out of time I threw together this scarecrow crunch mix (from pinterest) for them instead. I found the cute bags at the Dollar Tree. Get my tags for free HERE.

Here are some books we loved this week!