In my short (so far) teaching career I've been brave enough to attempt cooking a few times. Now you may think I'm stark raving mad. And to be honest you're probably right, the chances are I probably am stark raving mad. But by my logic my teachers in school tried to teach us some of the basics of cooking so I'd like to pass on my wisdom! While my teachers were crazy/daft enough to attempt scones, fairy cakes and pasta dishes I am not that crazy. As you may remember from tp3 I attempted smoothies with 3rd class and only made a small mess.
Junior Infants
Pancakes!! Now I have a recipe I love to use which is a Jamie Oliver special so I'm not giving away any trade secrets by posting the link
here. But I'm not brave enough to try this recipe with a large group of infants....so I admit I cheated a little. I bought ready made ones and used the microwave. Of course there's still cooking involved for this if you're an infant. So we discussed safety in the kitchen as a SPHE lesson and talked about all the things needed for pancakes. Then we went to the staffroom and sat around the big table! I brought in sugar, lemon and some of the kids had some fruit that they like on top. They took it in turns to help teacher to heat up the pancakes, then choose their topping and eat it-no plates we used kitchen roll to avoid the mess! Yummy!!
Krispie Nests!! Like Rice Krispie cakes but they're nests made out of Shreddies. Again we were careful to discuss the safety issues and what we should do while in the Kitchen. While each group was cooking with Teacher, the others were doing art. Lessens the mess. So I halved the Shreddies and melted the chocolate. Then the kids dipped their own piece of shreddies into the melted chocolate and put three mini eggs on top! We left them to dry and harden before they were taken home to be eaten....It was lent after all! Not sure everyone liked Shreddies but they looked FAB!!
5th Class
Spaghetti Bolognese!! (Just like I did when I was in school) This one is an older attempt. It was during TP1 and I had gone to school there myself so I knew the set up and had a few cooking lessons there myself. So I won't go through all the recipe but needless to say we cooked in groups of 4, ish. Everyone had a job to do from chopping the veg to stirring the sauce and pasta. And of course the garlic bread. We were doing great until the fire alarm went off....OOPS!! We followed the fire escape plan to the school yard and the kids had a good ole laugh at poor little me outside in my apron. Thankfully we didn't set off the alarm, it was a fire drill. Just glad we did what we were meant to do and did it well!! We went back to the classroom once everything was cooked and had ourselves a wee picnic! Brilliant-If I do say so myself!
Wise words today? Safety in the kitchen lessons are not as much fun as the cooking but equally important! Also, make enough yummy treats for the teacher too! They deserve it!
Sounds great! One of the teachers in my school has a great day each year doing "International Food Day". The kids each choose an international dish, cook it at home and bring it into school (also has to research history of dish etc.). Then everyone tastes lots of different dishes, great fun!
ReplyDeleteOh that sounds great!! Worked with a teacher who used to do that too, wasn't there for it though but the pics she had were really great and the kids had some lovely work done about the day. It's on my list of things to do when I've got a class. Oh all the things I could do if only I had a class...I sound like Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz now!
ReplyDelete