Special Notes On Cooking Experiences For Head Start Children
The preparation of food is a most important kind of experience for Head Start children. It has an immediate appeal to all the senses, arouses child ren's curiosity, and gives them many good
experiences in observing, experimenting and discovering foods for themselves. It introduces them to foods that they have not tried before, and encourages learning about food textures, odors, tastes and consistencies.It is not necessary to involve all of the children each time you have a cooking experience, although they should all be involved in the eating. One good technique that some teachers have used is to have one small group of children work with a volunteer or the aide in preparing some food that can be served to all of the group. Working with four or five means that there is an opportunity for every one to participate in all of the steps. It helps to have more than one set of measuring spoons, cups, and other equipment so that two children can be measuring at one time. Children want to taste, smell and sometimes feel the ingredients before they are combined. A cupcake paper is a good container for tasting. Encourage the children to talk about how it tastes and feels, and to discuss what happens to the consistency of jello powder when you add water, and when you refrigerate it, or bread when you toast it, butter when you melt it, or vegetables when you cook them.
Many Head Start teachers keep an electric skillet in their classrooms and there is a cooking experience involving some children almost every day. One day a beef stew with vegetables is bubbling in the housekeeping center. Another day whole beets are brought in, examined, washed, and cooked. Children are very eager to eat what they themselves have cooked. Teachers can further reinforce the learning from cooking experiences in many ways, (for example, having some mounted pictures of the way beets look as they come from the garden, and the way they look after being cooked, or singing a song about a man whose 'head was made of a beet, arms of carrots, feet of radishes" and so on, and by using flannel vegetables to make the man on the flannel board). If creative dance is a part of your program, children might move the way their spoons move as they stir or jump the way the kernel pops when they make popcorn.
Sometimes your cooking experience can be tied in with a trip to the grocery store or a visit to a nearby garden. Your class may visit a child's garden in the neighborhood, pick green beans and bring them back to school to cook. This activity can be reported to parents in a Head Start Newsletter which children take home with them.
Cooking can contribute to the development of children's thought processes in many areas:
What is Learned When Children Cook? Math
1. Measuring--tablespoon, teaspoon, cup
2. Counting
3. Measurements--dozen, pound, weight
4. Oven temperatures
5. Sequencing--recipe directions
6. Classifying foods--food groups, colors, shapeScience/Discovery
1. Planting and how all things grow
2. Solids to liquids, liquids to solids
3. Heat and cold
4. Sense awareness--development of a sense of smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing
5. Nutrition awareness
6. Food changes during cookingLanguage Arts
1. Listening skills--following a recipe
2. Sequential learning--repeating recipe steps in order
3. Dictating a recipe to the teacher and watching it being written down
4. Letter recognition--isolating letters in a recipe
5. Word recognition--isolating words in a recipe
6. Adjective growth--increase of descriptive terms
7. Formation of a cookbook
8. Dictating stories about favorite foods, least favorite foods
9. Following directionsCreative Dramatics and Music
1. Role playing--parents' cooking role, children's role, restaurant visit
2. Dancing--get the feel of the ingredient and act it out
3. Making up or learning songs about the ingredients
4. Practicing rhythms--stirring and kneading
5. Leaning new soundsSocial Studies
1. Learning about the different ways the same food is made in different areas
2. Learning about food from different cultures--the discovery of new tastes, food patterns and other lands.
3. Learning how to work together, share and cooperate
4. Learning how to plan with one another
5. Learning about community helpers who provide food for us to buy and eatArt
1. Making a food collage
2. Drawing pictures of the food prepared
3. Illustrating a recipe
4. Molding food into sculptures--candy, cookies and bread dough
5. Observing color, texture and formPhysical Development
1. Learning new fine motor skills--knead, roll, stir
2. Experiencing new smells, textures, sounds and tastesCooking experiences must be carefully planned, organized and supervised. Extra hands can contribute to a successful activity, so try to involve parents in cooking activities. Follow these simple classroom cooking rules:
1. Be well prepared-have all the ingredients and equipment on hand. Whenever possible, plan cooking activities that use food items that are kept on the menu for the week.
2. Keep it simple--be sure that the children, not the teacher, can prepare the recipe. This is a big consideration in self-concept growth. Also, try to select food other than cookies and sweets to prepare and serve.
3. Wash hands before starting.
4. Work in small groups.
5. Let children use all of their senses with each ingredient--let them smell, feel, hear, observe and taste.
6. Let the children be creative- the learning is in the doing, not in the perfection of the end product (2)
7. If one group is to work in the housekeeping area preparing food, others should know that the experience will be repeated at another time so that they can also participate.
8. The plastic knives with serrated edges work for most peeling and cutting of fruits and vegetables. However, since many children will use paring knives or sharp knives at home, it may be a good idea to teach them how to safely use these knives under supervision.
9. The teacher or aide assumes the responsibility for the hot plate or electric skillet.(1)
10. While eating the food, encourage children to discuss the sequence of its production. The picture recipes can be cut into pieces for the children use to practice sequencing skills.
11. Invite parents to sample foods their children have prepared
(1) How -to-Do-It Bulletin XVII, Cooking Experiences for Head Start Children, August 22, 1969 and;
(2) Advisory and Learning Workshop, Coping with Kids While Cooking, S. Ostrow, 1977