Cooking Club

At Walton Pre School we strive to give each child the best possible start to life, building upon self-confidence, self esteem as well as life skills.

 

All children require us as practitioners to provide them with real life experiences in preparation for their development. Cooking is a life skill needed by all. Children will learn through their senses: Touch, Smell, Taste as well as Hearing. Cooking provides children with purposeful learning: Turn taking, Sharing, Listening to others, and promoting of social skills. When preparing our food children learn the importance of maintaining clean workstations, the need to be careful when using the equipment, as well as learning to challenge themselves and take calculated risks.

 

Through social interaction and questioning amongst staff and peers’ children enhance their understanding of where the food comes from, how its grows and how we can help support the food chain.

 

At Walton Pre School all children take part in a cooking activity once a week. The children share their ideas with their teachers of items they would like to try/cook, as well as look through recipe books to stimulate new ideas too. All ingredients are provided by Walton Pre School along with cooking aprons for the children and staff to wear during the preparation stages.

Soup Club funded by Walton & District FoodBank

This term we joined a soup club funded by Walton & District FoodBank. We were given a free Soup Makers and all the ingredients to make tasty soup options for a 6 week period.

The children will make and taste the following soups

  • Tomato & basil
  • Leak & potato
  • Broccoli and cheese
  • Butternut squash and red pepper
  • Chicken noodle
  • Chunky vegetable

October Cooking Club Activities

Bread Making

To support our cooking activities at Pre School we invited Marc a local chef and also an ex parent to come along to Pre School and teach the staff and children how to make bread loaves, bread rolls and create plaits too.

The children all sat anticipating what was going to happen next. All the children helped by washing their hands, placing their cooking aprons on and collecting their rolling pins.

Each child had a turn at mixing, kneading the dough and rolling too.

The children waited patiently for their creations to prove in the warm kitchen. The staff helped by cooking the bread, and rolls. The smell in the Pre School was amazing!

Once they had cooled we all tucked in at snack time. It was delicious.

Thank you to Marc and the staff for helping to support the children with this fantastic activity.

Cooking Club Activities - September 2023

The children enjoyed their cooking lesson this afternoon. We made delicious cupcakes together.

Caterpillar Class made some yummy people biscuits to link in with our topic ‘all about me’

They each took it in turns to add the ingredients, stir the mixture, roll out the dough, use their cookie cutter and add features to the face. They looked delicious and the children took them home with them.

Today Caterpillar Class made ‘Pizza Faces’ as part of our ‘All About Me’ topic.

The children enjoyed cutting fruit for their snack as part of their cooking activity this week. With support they were able to cut their own fruit, put it in their bowls and enjoyed eating it.

Butterfly Class made some yummy biscuits for their cooking activity. They worked as a team to measure and mix the ingredients then used round cutters to shape their biscuits.

Butterfly Class made pizza wraps! They chose their toppings, spread and sprinkled them on a wrap then rolled them up to eat. Delicious!

Summer Term Cooking

Traffic Light Biscuits
Our cooking activity this week related to our ‘Transport Day’ as we made traffic light biscuits, which were delicious!

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Fresh Orange Juice
As part of our ‘healthy eating’ topic the children made their own freshly squeezed orange juice to drink at snack time. It was very tasty. The children were so proud of their achievements that they took some to the office for Laura and Jackie to try. They both agreed that it was delicious too and asked us to make this again on sports day.

Spring Term Cooking Activities

Easter nests
The children had a lot of fun but it was hard to stop the children trying to eat them before they took them home!

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Baking Cookies

Today at preschool the children enjoyed making cookies. They helped weigh and mix the ingredients and then decorated the cooked biscuits with smarties and icing.

Star Sandwiches

We made star shape sandwiches using ham with bread and butter. The children helped spread the butter and fill the sandwiches with ham. They then cut them in stars which tied in with our ‘Space topic’. They then enjoyed eating them for morning snack.

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Space Aliens Snacks

Today’s cooking activity related to our ‘Space’ topic. Caterpillar Class made Space Aliens using crackers, cheese spread, vegetables and salad. They ate them at snack time and were delicious!

Rocket Kebabs
As part of our space topic the children made space rockets during their cooking activity. The children very carefully used skewers to thread on strawberries, pineapple and marshmallows. Snack time was very tasty!

Strawberry Smoothies

The children made strawberry smoothies! They cut up the strawberries, added vanilla ice cream and milk, then blended it altogether. The children drank them at snack time. It was delicious and very refreshing!

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New Year's Baking Activities

We had a very special birthday. Laura turned 40 and we threw her a surprise birthday party. We baked cupcakes ready to eat at the party. The children helped weigh and mix the ingredients and then spooned the mixture in the cupcake cases. They were delicious!

The children have been exploring animals and their habitats, so in today’s cooking activity the children made fish and seahorse shaped shortbread. They measured, weighed and mixed the ingredients together. The children then each had their own ball of dough and using a rolling pin rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters to make fish and seahorse shapes. Once cooked, the children ate them for their snack. They were yummy!

Festive Baking

During December the children will be making lots of festive treats. This week (w/c 5th December) we enjoyed making and decorating Christmas Tree Brownies. 

Apple Crumble

w/c 14th November 2022 – The children helped prepare their apples in readiness for making Apple Crumble. The children helped peel, slice, cut, and measure the ingredients, supported by staff. The crumble was then cooked for the children to enjoy eating during their snack time. It smelt delicious in Pre School!

Delicious Bread Parcels

Last week’s cooking activity (w/c 7/11/22) was delicious. A new recipe for us all to try and very easy too!

We cut our bread into small circles using a cutter, greased a tin and placed the bread in the middle. Then we whisked the eggs together and added some chopped up pieces of ham and cheese. The children helped pour a small amount of egg into each circle tin and then an adult added them to the oven.

It tasted like a mini quiche! It was very delicious; we will be making these again.

Marvellous Me

This week (3.10.22) to support our topic ‘Marvellous Me’ the children have created People Pitta Pizzas.

The pittas were pre-cut for the children to add their delicious toppings.

We discussed our selection of toppings listening to the children and staff’s likes/dislikes and not forgetting the favourite toppings. 

Healthy Eating

The week being 26th September the children will be covering ‘Healthy eating’, with a variety of activities exploring real fruit and vegetables along with discussions of professionals who help us remain healthy eg dentist.

Today’s cooking activity the children helped with peeling and pulling apart the fruit, adding the pieces into the bowls. The children then picked their fruit and pushed it onto a skewer making their own healthy fruit kebabs.

Vegetable Soup

This week (10.10.22) the children have made a delicious vegetable soup and homemade bread rolls. The children helped staff with cutting, chopping and peeling the vegetables.

The children discussed the smell of the vegetables along with the texture.

The soup and bread was delicious!

Easter Treats​

This week in our cooking club we found a recipe in one of the local magazines that incorporated boiled eggs. Through discussion as a class we noticed that the picture showed how the eggs had been created into Easter bunnies. We followed each step, allowing time for our teachers to cook the eggs and cool. We all used our imagination and created our own unique Easter egg bunnies.

29/3/23   Making Easter Nests
All the children took part in making Easter nests. The children enjoyed watching the chocolate go from a solid to a liquid. We discussed the change that had taken place.

 

We then added the melted chocolate slowly into a large bowl of crunched up Shredded wheat. We all had a turn at stirring, before carefully scooping a little out of the bowl unto our cupcake cases. We then added our small Easter eggs. We were all very excited to take them home.

28/3/23   Making fudge for our parents

For the first time at Pre School the children and staff made fudge. We were initially unsure how it would turn out, but we had great success.

 

The children listened to the instruction’s read out by their teachers and followed each step carefully.

 

We all enjoyed measuring, pouring, crushing and stirring all the ingredients together.

 

We all waited patently for the fudge to set. It tasted delicious!

Exploring Space

16/3/2023   Creating moon rock
Our last cooking activity within our space topic was creating moon rocks. Today we made cookies with a nice sweet treat inside. The children supported their teachers in weighing the ingredients, mixing them together and then separating into small amounts.

 

The children have explored many areas of space and extended their knowledge and understanding.

9/3/23   Making star sandwiches

During our cooking club sessions the children will focus on life skills as well as making lovely treats.

 

 

Today the children asked to make star sandwiches for their snack.

 

We first discussed how we would make a sandwich and thought about the stages that we needed to follow. We then discussed what we like in our sandwiches, some favourites were Ham, Jam and Cheese.

 

 

The children took the lead on this activity, working together they created a working station, moving the tables together and having the equipment laid out. We all shared and took it in turns to access the equipment and ingredients.

 

 

Todays activity became a very social experience for us all. (09.03.23)

28/2/23   Making Space Alien

Today we made Space Aliens

 

 

We created our space themed snack using tomato’s, crackers, cream cheese, cocktail sticks, sweetcorn and cucumber. The children were encouraged to use their cutting and treading skills to put it all together.

 

 

At times it was a little tricky but with determination we all succeed.

 

 

They were very yummy!

This half term the children have taken part in many cooking activities linking with their topic ‘Space’.

 

This week (23.02.23) the children have made space rockets using a variety of sweet ingredients. This activity focused on hand, eye co-ordination, threading their ingredients onto a skewer.

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