Cooking Week 3

Cooking Investigation: Week of October 8^th, 2012

This week we spent some time investigating with dough.  After investigating with ingredients the previous week the children has learned some new vocabulary pertaining to dough (knead, mix, rise, etc.)   On Monday we made dough using a recipe.  The children helped mix the dough first thing in the morning and by exploration time the yeast had caused the dough to rise.  We talked about how the dough had changed size and they had the opportunity to knead the dough, prepping it for baking.  After the children helped mix their dough and lay out the individual pieces we took a trip to the large kitchen to investigate the oven (without it on of course).  By that afternoon we had the chance to taste fresh baked bread, our first recipe we made together!  Building on their understanding of dough and how to work with it, we explored different techniques about making/working with the dough.  On Wednesday and Friday we practiced our kneading, braiding and tossing techniques.  The children visited the seminar room and watched some videos about working with dough.  Then they each worked with their own piece, tossing and kneading it as they investigated.  Some of the children tried to imitate the chefs in the videos; most of the children just enjoyed the texture of the dough.  We will continue to work with dough and continue perfecting our recipes in the upcoming weeks!

 

Next week we plan to revisit our dramatic play area, in the hopes that the children will take their new knowledge and apply it to familiar materials.  We will see how the use the materials now and the vocabulary they introduce.  Last time we planned a visit to the dramatic play the children talked making different recipes.  It is our hope that they will continue this discussion as well as use some of the new concepts we have discussed.