Baking at Neo-humanist School: Sunrise Kindergarten

Namaskar again.Yesterday, the first snow fall of the year came while we were sitting and doing our morning circle here in Sunrise Kindergarten (Finland). The children all got up and were so happy and jumping while looking outside from the window glass. I just remember two days ago that they were telling me, “it will snow soon, Didi and it will be colder, too. You need to have your jacket ready.” The morning circle was followed by a baking activity which all the children participated. It was fun and they enjoyed it all.

Baking is one of the favorite activities of the children in Sunrise. It is one of the activities that they like most because they can do something by themselves. It is one of the activities they are working together in a team. It is a time where they feel they can do something of their own or express their own skills and creativity. They can also choose which part of the baking activity they would like to contribute in. The things they normally do are mixing, grating, decorating (their cakes, cookies or muffins), mixing dough with ladles, rolling and molding dough, pouring, spooning, measuring, sifting and carrying the little trays from one table to another. They also do cutting (using butter knives) and mixing with electric machine but closely supervised by at least 2 staff.

Children learn many good things out of this simple activity which can contribute to their all-round development. I listed some of them below:

Cooperation: they learn to work together as team. Usually I do this activity with a group of 10 – 14 kids. They work together in one long table. Bigger children help the small one in e.g. pouring or measuring ingredients.
Patience: They learn how to wait for their turn. They take turns in pouring, spooning and mixing the ingredients in a big ball.
Fine motor skills development: through pouring, mixing, cutting, grating, and spooning. Rolling,
Gross motor development: carrying trays, rolling dough on a long table
Mathematical Development: weighing and measuring ( done by bigger children age 5 - 6 years)
Creative Development: molding , decorating the dough
Neo-humanistic Development: helpfulness, patience, cooperative, artistic, working in harmony with others, etc
Social and Emotional Development: they love this activity so much and they enjoy doing together with everyone including their teachers. At the end of the day, they bring their baked cake, buns or cookies and etc, home. Through this activity, they also develop the feeling of helping their own mother in their kitchen at home.

There are so many things still to write here and I bet that those who work with children can even write more.