Baking in the classroom
I love to bake with my kids. It involves so many different learning experiences – sharing, waiting your turn, measuring ingredients, chemical reactions, temperature, vocabulary, and it is something that makes everyone smile. We are fortunate enough to have a fully equipped kitchen at our center, and we often bake things in the oven, but for truly special days I like to keep the excitement in the classroom.
The last two weeks we have been baking up a storm to prepare for the holidays. One of our favorite recipes so far has been reindeer cookies. These are super easy to make – we used pre-packaged cookie dough (it is easy and it is already circle shaped), the only other ingredients are red m&ms for the reindeer noses, chocolate chips for eyes, and pretzels for the reindeer’s antlers. The children were able to put the different pieces of the reindeer’s face on before we baked the cookies, but the most exciting part was being able to watch them bake. I knew that I would not be able to get out of the classroom to run to the kitchen and check on the cookies, so I brought my toaster oven to school with me. It did take quite a bit longer to bake because we could only do 3 cookies at a time, and there were some safety precautions that we had to take (along with a great discussion of how to be safe around things that are hot), but the children were also able to watch the entire baking process. And then we ate the cookies for snack!
Another of our baking endeavours has been mini donuts, we made these for our Polar Express Pajama Party. On Black Friday I picked up a Mini Donut Maker for $10. It is the perfect tool for preschool because the mini donuts only take 2 minutes to cook – talk about instant gratification! The children loved that they were able to make their own treats for the party, and we were able to decorate the donuts and give some as gifts to our Director, Secretary, and Cook! Now I wish I had picked up some of the other great little machines (the same company also has a cake pop maker, cupcake maker, waffle maker, whoopie pie maker, and mini pie maker), maybe next year!