classroom activity ideas

beginning to the end without waitingto have their turn.

For the past five years we haveencouraged students at MCI to preparea recipe in pictures presented in such away that a four year old could followand “cook from it” . The following isan example of Karin Bernard, part timestudent who joined the early childhoodcourse in February and this recipe ispart of her practical life file.

Cooking ‘all by myself’!

Other ideas for photobook recipes:

Fresh lemonadePizzaVegetable dipsMuesliHoney –Banana-YoghurtFresh fruit cups

A pictorial recipe idea by Karin Bernard, a part-time studentat MCI introduced by Barbara Isaacs

When I visitedMontessorischools in SwedenI noticed childrenhad many

opportunities for individual foodpreparation activities. Classrooms hadchild sized areas equipped for foodpreparation and children oftencontributed to preparations for snack orlunch. Although it is difficult toreproduce this kind of facility in theUK, where most nurseries operate fromchurch halls, I wondered whether itwould be possible to set up “cookingactivities” ready for individual use?The advantages would be the same aswith any other activity available to the

child in the favourable environment.Children could select it

spontaneously and get involvedin the whole process from the

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Strawberry and Banana SticksThe Strawberry and Banana Sticks are

a colourful, tasty and healthy cookingactivity that can be done individuallyby very young children in the nursery.Always aiming for independence thechildren will be grateful to preparetheir own snacks.

This simple recipe requires the childto have developed some coordinationand fine motor skills from firstexperiences with practical life activities.It is necessary that the child has alreadypracticed pouring water from a jug intoa bowl and knows how to thread beadsfollowing a pattern.

JULY – SEPTEMBER 2008 Montessori International 21

The recipe is presented in the form ofa photo book and each photo representsone particular movement. The child canonly see one picture at a time. Turningthe page to see the next step helps thechild to structure the cooking processby doing one step after the other.

The activity might be prepared by theteacher and presented on a table asillustrated in picture 1. Another optionis for the teacher to make sure that allingredients are available in thecooking/snack area. The first step of theactivity is then for the child to preparehis/her own personal cooking area byassembling all necessary utensils andfruits.

The sticks can be made with any fruit.However, for young childrenstrawberries and bananas have severaladvantages; they can be preparedwithout the use of a knife, they are softand therefore can be put on the stickquite easily, and last but not leastchildren usually love these fruits, andthey look very decorative on the stick! �

The recipe above is

presented in the

form of a photo

book.

If you have pictorial recipes whichyou have tried with children why notshare them with the readers ofMontessori International? Email theeditor, amanda@montessori.org.uk

A selection will be published inforthcoming issues.

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