FAQ

How do you deal with allergies/dietary restrictions?

• A list of children’s food allergies or dietary restrictions is crucial. Before you serve any foods, check in with the parents to make sure that you know what you can and cannot serve. I have found parents to be inordinately helpful at providing acceptable alternative foods. Parents want their kids to participate so even if a child cannot eat what you have prepared, have them wash their hands, and then eat a piece of fruit or something else with the group.
• Be aware of cross-contamination. Have kids with allergies go in the first group so tables or utensils are not exposed to the offending food.
• Don't ever force a child to try something. They may know something you don't or their parents have not informed the school of a sensitivity.

What is the typical length of these lessons?

• It depends on the age of the students but, in general, aim for about 30 minutes per group. Otherwise, they start to lose interest and you don't get as much bang for your buck. When these lessons were conceived, I had 3 groups of 8-10 kids each. For survival, prepare as much as possible at home so you can use every second wisely. Typically, I have used cooking as part of a 3 way rotation with one part being cooking, on part being garden or science (run by another parent), and the last part as special time for small group work with the teacher.

What are some the logistics that I need to consider for cooking lessons?

• Cooking space
  • If your school has a kitchen, remember to reserve it. On the other hand, one year I did all the lessons outside on a picnic table because my cooking session overlapped with the kinder teacher’s lunch hour. If I needed to use an oven, I brought everything home to cook and took it back to school later. If you have to cook outside in a covered area, have access to an electrical outlet and you can use a blender and an extension cord. I also regularly use my 2 burner Coleman camp stove with pans from home or an aluminum griddle. I bring a small fire extinguisher, just in case, and make sure to tape myself off a kid-free zone. Note: my electric griddle did not heat up using a 50' extension cord so don't forget to check before you start.
• Work surfaces
  • The plates are used for serving food but also act as a work surface for cutting and illustrating lessons to students. Below are some other suggestions:
    • Covering the surface of the table with a table cloth but that can be time-consuming to clean.
    • Using long sheets of butcher paper worked well. Using a new sheet on an 8 foot table for each group could get expensive. It was nice because I could use it as a white board for demonstration purposes and the kids could make calculations right on the paper.
• Introducing measuring
  • Make sure you have all the measuring materials available so you are modeling the correct way to measure things. For example, don't use a dry measuring cup if you are measuring liquids.
    • I find it helpful to introduce the idea of teaspoon and tablespoon by pointing out that a tea cup would sit on a table so, therefore, it must be smaller.
    • Find a set of measuring cups and spoons that you can use to find the equivalencies between the metric system and the English system for some recipes.
    • For measuring flour, I like to use the idea of the mountain (big scoop without packing the flour down), earthquake (tap the sides to settle the flour), and bulldozer (use a straight-sided implement, like the back of a butter knife) held parallel to the sides of the cup to push the excess flour off.
• Quick Clean Up
  • You can use disposable/compostable products but I like the Preserve brand of reusable plastic plates. Our school has a set of heavy duty plastic ones that I can take home and wash. For clean up, I trained the kids to throw all the plates, silverware, etc. into a garbage bag and hauled it home to run in my dishwasher.