Baking lessons

Once in a while we have to take a break for "school" and do some "unschooling". Last week I decided to have some baking fun. I gave the girls a recipe and had them follow it from the beginning to end to see how well they would do.

It took some self restraint, but I really didn't help them other than a little verbal coaching. I had them read through the recipe out loud and we discussed what needed to be done first. They started out by getting all of the ingredients out that we would need. This recipe was "from scratch" so there were several things to get out.

Then we talked about things that the recipe assumed you did ahead of starting the directions : like cutting up the apples and greasing the pan.

I let them talk it over and divide the tasks up. They also took turns on the cutting apples since it was such a big job. Then came the measuring, and the math. My (1 cup) measuring cup broke so they had to use the 1/2 cup and do the math to figure out how many they would need. (The next day we did another recipe that we doubled first then had figure out how many 1/2 cups that would be.) We wern't doing school so this was fun!

Then more cutting, mixing, cracking eggs, cutting, rereading the directions, talking over who's turn it was...lots of cooperative working skills.

Really, I didn't do anything but take pictures. It was kinda fun, and I am sure planning on using this again.

And for dessert, we had German Apple Cake lovingly made by my three girls. (Cai slept through this whole process or he would have been in the mix as well.)