Our Little Chefs (Friday’s Journal)
Date: July 22, 2022
Theme: Cooking Day
Facilitators: Simran K, Simran J, Raveena and Jasmine
Introduction
This Friday, we followed the theme of ‘Cooking Day’, wherein all the activities revolved around the nitty gritties of cooking, i.e., the ingredients and the cutlery to be used, actually preparing a snack and reading a story about Tom who is a chef and how he bakes cakes.
We used "cooking" as an umbrella goal for the day to not only develop certain skills but it is also a treat for the tummy. Wearing the chef’s hat and apron was cherry on the cake since it did justice to the characters, ‘Our Chefs’.
Why did we plan this day?
Fine Motor development: The kids tried to mirror the action of spreading the butter over the bread. Using a butter knife with their dominant hand and the act of spreading can help build their pre writing skills.
Language Development: There was a lot of conversation and description about the skills that were being used while preparing the snack, like “Spread the butter with a butter knife”, “Sprinkle the sugar over the bread”, “Does the sugar taste sweet?” etc. All of these can induce learning about new verbs and adjectives.
Improving imagination and creativity: Abstract thinking is the ability to understand concepts that are not directly tied to tangible items or experiences. Today, a lot of kids engaged in pretend play while sticking cutlery and food items on the big canvas. For example, they were given prompts like, “Lets cut the banana (imaginary) using the print-out of the butter knife”, “Who likes to lick butter? Let’s lick it” (pointing towards and pretending to lick the sheet over which butter was printed). Pretend play can induce development of abstract thoughts in toddlers which in-turn promotes creativity.
Boost Confidence: The toddlers were encouraged to do simple chores on their own. For instance, they were shown how to put butter on their bread using a butter knife and then sprinkle sugar over it. This may help boost their confidence regarding things that they can independently carry on.
Socio emotional learning: Learning about household work and items can help them get connected to their family and the environment at home. This can lead to them helping their family members at home thereby leading to socio emotional development in the child.
How did it go? (Finally!)
Work-time: One table had the cut-outs (both bigger and smaller in size) of ingredients that we were going to use to make the snack in the small group (Bread, butter and sugar) and on the other table, with similar concepts, the cut-outs of the cutlery was put (Butter knife, spoon and Plate). The kids were supposed to match the smaller cut-outs and paste them over the bigger cut-outs. This laid the foundation for the small-group activity. The kids were able to recognize the items and engage in pretend play.
Small group: They were made to wear the chef’s hat and an apron to match the aura of the activities planned. Most of the kids were in high spirit once they were in the chef’s attire!
Both the tables were joined. It seemed like all the kids were part of a family and they sat to eat on the table together. They learned how to use a butter knife to spread butter and sprinkle the sugar over the butter. Faces of Ratujit, Krishay and Yasha were filled with sugar and they seemed to enjoy the sugar rush. Vanya was interested in just licking the butter whereas Aaradhya wanted simran didi to eat the snack with her. Samika wasn’t able to spread the butter using the knife but she made sure she was holding the knife till the end of the activity.
Story time: Tom’s story involved a lot of ‘mixing’, ‘pouring’ and ‘putting the batter into the oven’ and these kids engaged in those movements with the facilitators, showing familiarity with the verbs.
Overall, Our chefs had all our hearts today and we couldn’t wait to cook something again with these skilful master of chefs.
