Cooking breakfast in a Pandemic

Yesterday, I ran across a Facebook live video of April VanSickle Graff, someone I knew as a creative young learner when I taught first grade in Laurens, Iowa. April is now a nutritionist for Hy-Vee in Mankato, Minnesota and posted a video of cooking French Toast in a Mug with her daughter in her role as a nutritionist. Engaging young learners in cooking experiences is an integrative STEM experience.

Food assembly has long been a part of early childhood curriculum. There are many examples of how mathematics is embedded in preparation of ants on a log, or sandwiches. What is often overlooked is the STEM involved with actual cooking experiences.

As children make their own servings of pudding, pancakes, muffins, quesadillas, eggs, or in this case - French toast in a mug, they engage in vocabulary that often has multiple meanings. In cooking we whip, beat, sift, dice…all words that have different meanings in different contexts.

There is mathematical thinking such as of more and less, shorter and longer in terms of time, number of scoops or spoonful’s and experiences connecting children to the concepts of volume and fractions.

Cooking experiences can introduce cultural dishes previously unknown to children, or regularly enjoyed.

Finally, cooking experiences immerse children in observations about properties of materials or ingredients, and how those properties may change when heat or cooling is applied to a mixture, and if those changes are reversible.

French Toast in a Mug is a recipe adapted from the August 2019 issue of Hy-Vee’s Seasons Magazine. We adapted the recipe calling the measurement of Tablespoon a “big spoon”, the ½ teaspoon a “little spoon”, and the ¼ teaspoon a “tiny spoon.” Seriation of sizes matches the development of math with preschoolers and kindergarten. When children are in first, second, or third grade, they can begin to make sense of standard units of measurement.

Parents staying at home with their prek-grade 2 children can turn breakfast into meaningful learning experiences when they cook with them. Visit the link below to find the recipe to French Toast in a Mug along with other recipes available to download on our website.
https://regentsctr.uni.edu/ceestem/recipes/french-toast-mug

The video of April and her daughter can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/HilltopHV/videos/807652576391609/

I made myself a mug  this morning. Tasty!