Pre-K Cooking Class: Pizza!

Last week, Alex's teacher called and asked if I could come in this week to cook with the kids. Automatically, I said yes.

I gave it a bit of thought, going through some of Alex's cookbooks for ideas, but ultimately settled on one of the most kid-friendly foods of all time: pizza.

Matt came with me, and Thursday we carted all our ingredients and tools with us as we took Alex to school.

Tate's offers parents the option of sending the kids a full five days, or just three days a week, so we had about half the class size.

I started by explaining what yeast was, and what it did, telling the kids how yeast loves sugar. And how just like when they eat sweet things and bounce off the walls, yeast gets pretty excited with sugar, too. I told them yeast was 'picky', too...that it wanted water that was 'just right', and what would happen if it the water were too hot or too cold. They seemed to get it.

I invited each of them to help in some step, from adding in the yeast and sugar, stirring it up, adding in the flour and olive oil. They did such a good job, too! Everyone listened well, and we were mess-free.

I did the initial mixing, then gave everyone a small ball of the dough for them to 'smoosh' like Play-Doh; they had a lot of fun with this step, as well as the next, when I had them flatten their piece into something resembling a circle.

At this point, each was given a small paper cup of sauce we'd made the night before, with a plastic spoon, and they added as much or as little as they wanted. I then gave them a handful of shredded mozzarella, and offered them pepperoni or sausage (which we'd cooked the previous night) as toppings. They had so much fun! And more than a few pieces of cheese or pepperoni failed to make it on the pizzas...

To ensure future happiness, I labeled the parchment on the pans with their names, and everyone was able to get the pizza they'd made.

I was impressed with how well the kids behaved, how good they were about helping and paying attention, and I think they had a pretty good time.

And I felt mildly superior when, as we were waiting for the pizzas to finish baking, another teacher came in and mentioned plans for her class (another pre-k class, I believe) were also making pizzas...and took biscuit dough out of the refrigerator!

'My' kids had the real thing, and more importantly, learned how easy it was to make it themselves.




This month, Blog Party is creating Fusion...food fusion, that is!

Mix & match cuisines, get creative with your spices, and join the party! Entries are due next Thursday, 15 November; leave a link in the comments or send your URL to thehappysorceress at gmail dot com. Hope to see you there!



Tagged with: Food and Drink + Kids + Cooking + Pizza + Cheese + School