Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Sweet Lesson of Making Sugar Cookies

Last week we made sugar cookies in my kindergarten class. We started from scratch. It seems few children get to do this any more. I suppose it goes along with the thought that food originates in the grocery store. I have some wheat stalks that I show before we look at the flour in the sack. I explain that wheat is grown on large farms and a big machine cuts it and shakes the seeds out and another mills it by squishing up the seeds into powder. It is oversimplified, I know, but thoughts are planted.

There is so much vocabulary involved that it is a shame I do not cook more with my children. It just takes a lot of preparation and then clean up and I really need another adult in there with me and volunteers are not coming out of the woodwork anymore. Too, our curriculum is more demanding than ever, so there does not seem to be time allowed for much additional.

Each child completed three tasks to help make the cookies: they either measured  or added some ingredient; they each used the electric hand-mixer (holding it entirely on their own while I took their picture); and each one used the heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out their own cookie.



In the afternoon, they wrote about making cookies.

On Valentine's Day, they drizzled pink icing on their cookie and ate it with vanilla ice cream with sprinkles. It is a very simple special snack with lessons embedded for hungry mouths ---and minds.

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