Cooking in the Montessori Classroom: Everyday Food
- At December 06, 2016
- By CGMontessori
- In CGM BLOG, CGM Parent News
- 0
Or should we say: “Every day, we made food.” That’s right, the kitchen was working this week! We kept it casual and got messy every day last week. As I reflect on the lessons we covered, I’m really glad I just decided to go with the flow, so to speak.
Monday. Almost every child who entered the classroom asked, “Miss Holly, what are we making today?” My answer was, “I don’t know. What sounds good?” “Pizza!” one said. “No cheese,” I said. “How about biscuits?” “Yes!” So the biscuit work is reintroduced.
For this work we use biscuit mix, rather than making them from scratch. I do this for many reasons; the simplicity of only two ingredients, the immediate result of not measuring properly, and perhaps most important, the cleanup. My direct purpose is the scooping, water pouring and carrying, stirring, sweeping, and table cleaning. My indirect aim is awareness. I would like the children to eventually realize that if they are more careful during their cooking work, the cleanup is much easier.
During our 2.5-3 hour work cycle, roughly 3-4 children can complete this work from start to finish.
Tuesday. We were fortunate to have a child bring in all of the ingredients necessary to make “ants on a log.” The child who brought these items had first crack at creating a plateful for snack and kindly invited others to help.
I am still laughing at the chaos that was our Practical Life area on Wednesday. The biscuit making was out again, and for some reason, the mix and dough was flying. We had some friends that were under the impression that the making of the biscuits made them far too exhausted to clean up, so I was often out to “fetch” those weary chefs.
Meanwhile, we decided to serve this round of biscuits with some delicious butter and jelly. I can only describe the following pandemonium as a “jelly mob.” It was like they heard the jar open and nearly lost their minds.
All I could do was watch. Everyone was covered in jelly (and touching things!), biscuit chunks were being kicked across the floor and at least three children were shouting, “the beads are on the floor, the beads are on the floor!” What is the proper reaction? I turned off the oven and sat down for a drink of water and waited for things to settle. It took some doing, but we managed to work together and set things right; and all before lunchtime!
So Friday finally arrived and I felt in my heart that we needed a class favorite to round out the week. You guessed it. Pancakes!
I can’t say it too many times; the mess, the planning, and the occasional hysterics are all worth the end result. Go cook with your kids!