Conclusion

Throughout the process of searching and reading the research I found for my literature review I was excited and amazed at how much students can learn through cooking.  My children’s skills in January before we started cooking weekly included, for example, not being able to count in sequence, pouring an adequate amount with out spilling, knew nothing about other cultures, and they couldn’t measure. 

Now after cooking for many weeks their skills have greatly improved, they are able to count in sequence, measure, pour, they are knowledgeable about Germany and Mexico, and they love trying new foods that they have made, and they can make meals on their own. The best part is all the bonding we have had.   

I have enjoyed this project every step of the way.  I have learned that action project means to take action to provide a better learning environment, be active in the learning process, and learning together makes it more fun and allows for people to discuss topics.  This action project has made me feel that I have a voice and I can help children learn in a fun, creative, hands-on manner that incorporates an academic foundation as well as, life-long skills.  I have thought outside of the box. I have tried new things that I don’t think I would have tried if it weren’t for this project.  Even though the project is coming to a close for this class, I do not believe I will stop this project.  I have thought of more cooking experiences for the children and more concepts to teach them.  I would love to continue this project throughout the summer so when they go to school in the fall hopefully they will have many skills that will help them succeed in school. 

This project also has implications for the future.  In the next school year I will look for more opportunities to develop an action project and work with children to provide the best learning environment for them.  

Implications:

Cooking experiences are easy to tie in meaningfully to a variety of content areas and topics

Cooking experiences are highly engaging and interesting to students 

Cooking and gardening experiences are loaded with science and mathematics concepts

Cooking with children allows for differentiation in that learning of varying ages and abilities can gain relevant knowledge and skills and participate meaningfully

Cooking experiences need not be costly, time-consuming or complicated

Journals with drawings and narrative are an effective way for children to document and reflect on their experiences

Pretzels

Ingredients

• 1 pkg. dry active yeast
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar

• 2 tbsp. butter, melted (or 2 tbsp. vegetable oil)
• 4 cups plus 1 tbsp. flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• Course salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, soften yeast in water for 10 minutes. Add salt, sugar and butter. Mix in flour until a dough forms. Knead the dough for 5 minutes and set aside for 1 hour.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. With a knife, cut dough into small pieces. Roll each piece into pencil-thin ropes and shape into pretzels. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and sprinkle 1 tablespoon flour.
3. Place pretzels onto floured cookie sheet. Brush with egg mixture and sprinkle coarse salt on top. Bake for 12 minutes.

Black Forest Torte

Ingredients

·                        1 dark chocolate cake mix (or your own from scratch)

·                        1/4 c. kirsch (cherry brandy)

·                        1 can cherry pie filling

·                        16 oz. heavy whipping cream

·                        1/2 c. confectioners' sugar

·                        Maraschino cherries, drained, optional, for garnish

·                        milk chocolate curls or shavings, for garnish

Instructions

Make one chocolate cake in two round pans.  Remove them from pans and let cool completely.  When they are cool you may sprinkle a little kirsch (cherry brandy) over them.  I omit this and the cake still tastes delicious. 

Chill electric beaters and large mixing bowl; beat cream until it thickens slightly, gradually add confectioners' sugar and beat until thick enough to hold its shape.

There are many ways to assemble the cake be creative.  This is how I do it because the kids love it!  I slice each layer in half horizontally.  So you will now have four layers.  Set the first layer on a cake plate spread the whipping cream on and then spread on some cherry pie filling.  Add the next layer, some whipping cream, cherries, and the next layer, I spread the remaining whipping cream around the entire cake, top with cherries and chocolate shavings.  The fourth layer of cake we crumble up and put around the sides of the cake.  Keep refrigerated.

Chex Mix  

Ingredients

4 ½ cups Rice Chex cereal

½ cup White Vanilla baking chips

¼ cup peanut butter

2 Tablespoons butter or margarine

1/3 cup powdered sugar

¼ cup M&M’s

Sprinkles

Instructions

Place cereal in medium bowl.  In small microwavable bowl, microwave vanilla chips, peanut butter, and butter uncovered on High 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until melted and smooth.  Pour peanut butter mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. 

Place ½ of the cereal mixture in 1-gallon food storage bag.  Add powdered sugar.  Seal bag, shake until well coated.  Spread on waxed paper or foil, cool about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, stir candies and sprinkles into remaining cereal mixture. Spread on waxed paper or foil, cool about 15 minutes.

In serving bowl, mix both cereal mixtures, store in airtight container.

*Remember: You do not need to use peanut butter with this recipe.  You may use a substitute or just the chocolate.  I have also found other recipes that are lemon flavor so you may find a recipe that works for your environment.     

Fiesta!

As our culminating activity we had a Fiesta!  I pulled everything we have learned over the past few weeks and put it all together.  Using each concept we created a fun Fiesta! 

I started by reading the book Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds.  This is my daughter's favorite book to get from the library.  We have read it so much that this book inspired the Fiesta.  I thought we could use it for our cooking because it fits perfectly.  The farm animals are tired of their regular food, so the rooster watches a cooking show and discovers salsa.  The chickens go into the garden and pick their supplies and make salsa.  Then the ducks make guacomole, and the pigs make nachos. It is a great book and I like how the author uses alliteration.  Example: succulent, spicy, southwestern cuisine, the limes had been lifted, the peppers had been pilfered, the scallions had been stolen. 

After reading we made our own salsa. I wanted to do this last summer because we grow all the ingredients in our garden.  However, we never made any.  We were all excited to make salsa.  Come to find out it is very easy to make and I am looking forward to our garden this year so we can make more.  The children took turns chopping vegetables and adding them to the food chopper.  We spoke Spanish saying hello, good bye, hot, cold, counting, please, and thank you.  I found it interesting that I speak Spanish throughout the day and the kids never repeat it.  W can count to 10 in Spanish but other than that they don't say any Spanish words.  After today's cooking experience they were saying please and thank you in Spanish while playing and using their cooking journals. 

In one part of the book, when the animals are getting ready for their Fiesta, the bull practices the Mexican Hat Dance.  So I thought it would be fun to try this.  I looked up how to do it.  We gave it a try.  It was fun to dance together and learn a new dance as part of another culture.

I was so wrapped up in what we were doing that I forgot to take pictures.  The children wrote in their cooking journals.  They drew a picture of the salsa we made and labeled it.  Then I asked them what their recipe for salsa is and wrote that down.  Some very interesting recipes! W chose all fruit ingredients for a fruit salsa! M chose various items including fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, and onions!  L chose bananas, yogurt, and strawberries!

Watching the kids from the first cooking experience until now and seeing how much they have improved on their skills and how much they have learned and retained from cooking amazes me.  It is the simple things in life.  As a parent you don't need a lot of supplies or equipment to teach your children. They just need to be involved in the everyday operations and they can learn dozens of life long skills.  As a teacher providing cooking experiences in school would give children an experience they may not be able to have at home. 

Green Day!

I know it's a little early for St. Patrick's Day, however, I need to adjust the schedule to finish my project before our presentations.  Also, I love holidays and festive days so I can do fun creative things with the kids.  The leprechaun has already been sneaking around our house, so I thought I would make a day of green!

We started our day with green eggs and green milk for breakfast.  My son requested next time to have green toast! The timing on this was perfect because at his school they will be eating green eggs and ham.  He is not a big fan of eating eggs.  So I am glad he tried them at home first so he knows what to expect at school.  After breakfast we got dress and wore our green apparel. 

Then we read a St. Patrick's Day story.  The girls and I went to the library and I asked for the St. Patrick's Day books.  The librarian said they didn't have many and showed me where they were.  There were four books on the shelf and three of the books were the same story!  So I took one off the shelf glanced through it and brought it home.  It turned out to be a really cute book.

The story was about a town decorating for St. Patrick's Day and the people wanted to paint the entire town green.  A little man came and need help with his cows so the people of the town helped him.  However, they didn't finish painting in time for St. Patrick's Day so while they were sleeping the little man painted their town.  When they woke up everything was green. 

My kids and I went to our kitchen and took out green peppers, paper, and green paint.  I cut the peppers in half, they dipped the peppers in paint and then onto their paper.  This creates shamrocks! So cool and so easy.  I learned that you need just a little paint.  Not too much or it won't look like a shamrock. 

Next, we made green Jell-o. My kids love Jell-o.  During this activity we worked on measuring, stirring, and pouring.  They are doing so much better than when we started!  After we put the jell-o in the fridge we made chocolate pretzels.  These are the pretzels with a Hershey kiss melted and M&M's on top.  Thanks to Pinterest for the idea.  I found green mint M&M's so we used those.  W set the pretzels on the cookie sheet, L unwrapped the chocolate, and M placed the chocolate on the pretzel.  I put them in the oven at 200 degrees just long enough for the chocolate to melt. I took the cookie sheet out and we topped them with green M&M's to look like a shamrock.  So easy and so delicious!  This helped L with her counting.  She even counted the bowls of Jell-o by herself.  So proud of her! 

The children took out their Cooking Journals while I cleaned up a bit.  They drew pictures of what we made this morning.  They even labeled their pictures on their own.  (Their idea, so proud!)  This was a great recall exercise.  They thought about everything we did in the morning.  Discussing how everything was made and the color green.

Then it was time for lunch. We had green tortilla sandwiches with a green surprise in the middle, a pickle!  They had fun making the sandwiches and they loved eating them!  A+ for trying something new!

I am glad I had a book to connect to our Green Day.  The children referred to the book throughout the morning, recalling what happened in the story, talking about green, connecting the book with what they were doing.  This project for today started out just being geared toward St. Patrick's Day fun.  However, in the middle of it, I thought, we could do a different color a day and learn our colors that way.  L needs to learn a few more colors yet. So I thought this would be perfect for her.  We were able to work on shapes during lunch, counting, measuring, motor skills, as well as, St. Patrick's Day and helping others.  Throughout the day the children would name items that are green.  If they saw something green they would say it or they would name an item that is green.

I am feeling more confident with this project and I keep coming up with more ideas.  The amount of learning I can incorporate into our cooking projects astonishes me.  Instead of doing separate lessons for each concept, I can include everything in one cooking project! Time saver, more fun, and the children really respond to and comprehend the material.