Reflection Three - Cooking

Food Technology

Baking Day is a favourite with my preschool children and today we are making gingerbread men!  The story of the Gingerbread Man is one of S's favourite stories and this interest was found when the Team Leader went to S's house for a family visit. At home, S is read this story often.  Since this visit we have been reading the story over and over in class, singing the gingerbread song and doing the dance that we have on CD.  So the next extension of this interest was to make gingerbread men ourselves!

The children worked in groups of three and each took turns to measure ingredients, pour ingredients in the bowl and mix them altogether.  It was time to knead the dough but the mixture was sooo sticky so we had to add more flour.  It was very hard to roll out the mixture and use the cookie cutters as the dough was still sticky and stuck to everything! B and L added more flour and used the cookie cutter to make their gingerbread men. They only ended up making one shape each as they said it was too hard to do because the dough was too sticky.   Oh dear! What shall we do now?  We kept adding more flour to the mixture and then B and L decided we could roll the dough into balls and make gingerbread balls. It wasn't quite the gingerbread men shapes we were originally aiming for but in the end they tasted very yummy indeed!

Cooking, as Smorti (1999) states, is a "technological activity used to meet children's learning needs" (p. 6).  The purpose is to produce food and is also a creative process eg my end product may be quite different from your end product! When children cook they use a range of skills during the process for example learning to hold the bowl and spoon at the same time and mixing the ingredients together.  Maths enters the equation when you measure out the quantities of the ingredients to be used.  Social skills are being extended when working in groups and communication is a big part of this type of activity when the children talk to each other and discuss what is happening, assigning jobs and sharing equipment.  When recipe's are used, reading comes into play, reading the pictures to represent words and letter/number recognition.    

Technology played a big part in this experience and was especially significant for child S.  It was connecting the centre to home which was relevant for S and shows that she is important and affirmed.  Ministry of Education (1996) talks about the preschool environment and how we are to affirm and extend these connecting links also (p. 56).  Technology provided the products and resources to do the cooking and knowledge, skills were combined to help solve problems eg dough being sticky.  Another important aspect of this experience is the social aspect and the significance it has on a child's learning and development.  Mindes (2006) states, "social studies is the exploration of people's interactions in and with their social and physical environments" (p. 107).  The children learn about working with others and the sharing and compromise that takes place within these settings.  The understanding and skills that a child develops from these cooking experiences helps to "enable themselves to participate in society as informed, confident, and responsible citizens"  (Manukau Institute of Technology, 2010, p.3).

The theory behind why teachers do what they do is critical to best practice and developing  teacher's knowledge.  When I asked the children why are we cooking today their replies are a bit different, "Because it's fun and we love eating!"

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