Baking is a perfect example of a natural teachable moment at home. I know it creates mess, requires patience and often seems like a lot of hassle but I promise you, it's worth it. It's not about creating masterpieces either so you don't need to be a domestic goddess to bake with your kids (I'm definitely not!). You don't need to be passing on heirloom recipes - start with simple Rice Krispie buns if you like.
Today, my daughter and I prepped for our Christmas Cake baking day tomorrow. There was great excitement because this occasion marks the start of the festive season for us. The first thing she did today was to unearth my grandmother's cake tins from the back of the press. Although, we have lovely new, non-stick tins that we use for our regular baking, it's become our tradition to use my grandmother's tins for the Christmas cake. Laughter, spices and flour dust filled the air in the kitchen today but what did my daughter learn in the process?
Procedure
Asking a child to read a recipe and to follow the step by step instructions is an important life skill. It demonstrates to a child that while she may not know how to do something, she can learn how to by following a particular set of instructions.
It also teaches children about the importance of order. Skipping a step or doing steps in the wrong order can have disastrous effects on how a cake turns out. The same is true of solving maths problems, building a house or performing an operation.
For a child who struggles with concentration, this is a great way to exercise this 'muscle' under some patient guidance to keep them on track.
Maths
Today, I asked my daughter to calculate how many grammes of dried fruit in total were needed for our Christmas Cake recipe. I knew I did not have the correct exact quantities of currants, raisins and cherries according to the recipe but I estimated that I probably had enough enough in totality to do the job. She wrote out her figures e.g 800g, 150g and 110g in a column on a piece of paper and totalled it no problem. I asked her to weigh all the dried fruit that we had in the store cupboard and to note them down, then total them and to let me know if we had enough. It didn't matter if there were slightly more raisins and slightly fewer cherries than the recipe indicated as long as the total matched the recipe. I left her to work on this task independently while I organised the rest of the ingredients. I observed her discreetly and she wrote all the weights down in column form again e.g. Currants 550g, Raisins 300g and so on. The only error she made was not spacing out her numbers correctly which made it more difficult for her to identify and add the units, tens and hundreds. I suggested she write the numbers out again in bigger writing making sure to place the units, tens and hundreds underneath each other. This helped her arrive at the correct total. She concluded correctly that we did have enough to proceed with the recipe. In fact, we had 50g more than we needed so she asked could she eat some of the raisins because she loves them! How could I resist.
Handwriting
There were a few ingredients that I was missing so I asked my daughter to tick off each of those that we had and to write out a shopping list of any item that I needed to buy tomorrow. I reminded her to include the quantity too so I would know how many packets/tubs to buy. I have her list in my handbag for my grocery shopping tomorrow morning.
Planning
Together, we went through the recipe from start to finish so that we had an overview of what we would be doing tomorrow. As we went through it, we identified all the utensils, bowls and accessories that we would need. My daughter zoomed around the kitchen sourcing the relevant items. We also soaked the dried fruit in brandy and weighed out the other ingredients in readiness for tomorrow.
Of course, she didn't go to bed thinking about all that she had learned or practised, she went to bed feeling loved and excited. The learning was incidental. Parents probably don't give themselves enough credit for how much they impart to their children in their every day activities.
I do a lot of baking with my children because I love it. I love that it puts us in a room together with no distractions and it gives us time to chat and giggle together. My daughter particularly enjoys baking and so too did my son when he was younger. He has recently graduated to cooking. He enjoyed watching some of Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Mealsliver's on TV so I bought him the cook book which he's used to cook us a few dinners. It's a bit of a nail biting experience for me as he makes a pretty horrific mess in the kitchen in the process but the pride on his face as he serves up the fruits of his labours makes my heart swell. I like to think it gives him a healthy respect for my cooking efforts too.
Domestic skills such as baking and cooking are often over-looked today as they compete with more exciting pastimes but I believe they are still relevant, important and enjoyable for today's child. At the very least, I want my children to know how to cook themselves a few nutritious meals when they head off to college. When I articulated this very point to my son one day, his eyes lit up, he smiled his cheeky grin and said; "Good idea Mom! I will be a big hit with the girls, cooking them gourmet dinners in my flat!"
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