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Bread Baking with Preschoolers

November 14, 2012 by notjustcute Filed Under: Learning through Play and Experience, Snack Time 6 Comments

There’s something special about bread.  It may be its universal nature, found in different forms all around the world.  Ann Morris’ book, Bread, Bread, Bread takes a fantastic around the world photo journey examining bread throughout a variety of cultures. (It’s a great book I would strongly recommend as part of a food unit like the one I outline over here.)

Maybe it’s the tie to my childhood memories.  I can vividly remember the smell of fresh bread greeting my nose before I even opened our screen door, as my mom busily baked her regular batch of fourteen loaves.

Or perhaps it’s just that I’ve got a thing for eating that warm, squishy stuff.

But baking bread is not just good for the belly.  It’s a great activity for teaching preschoolers all kinds of skills.

This article from NAEYC outlines a litany of developmental objectives and how they can be encouraged through a bread baking activity.  (It also includes a recipe for baking bread with kids that you mix right in a bag.  How fun is that?)

It’s clear that baking bread gives kids a sensory experience, math experience, language experience, and science…..ah science!  As if the changing properties from dry to wet, from dough to bread wasn’t enough, there’s the yeast.  Whenever I bake bread with little ones, I love to leave a bit of yeast in warm water with a bunch of sugar just sitting on the counter as we work through the recipe so they can see what those little pearls of yeast can do over time.

Time.  That’s the other great benefit of baking bread with the littles.  It’s the time you spend together.  It’s the time that you put into a project that creates something new.  It not only builds an understanding of process, but it builds connections and memories.

In addition to the bread recipe in the NAEYC article above, here are a few others you might want to try:

Kara Fleck bakes bread with her brood here at Simple Kids.

If you have tight time constraints, try this perfect pretzel recipe instead.  It uses yeast, but doesn’t take the time to rise.

Making dinner rolls for Thanksgiving?  This is my favorite, go-to roll recipe, shared by I Heart Naptime.

For more on how kids benefit from their time in the kitchen with you, check out Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.

What’s your favorite bread recipe to bake with kids?

This post contains some affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. 1

    Susan Case says

    November 14, 2012 at 4:34 pm

    14 loaves! That’s a lot of bread. I’ve only dared triple my bread recipe which seems like so much dough to me. Amazing how the loafs disappear – with friends or family. Great post.

    Reply
  2. 2

    Gracie says

    January 20, 2019 at 7:55 pm

    Hello! I love this post! Can you share the link the NAEYC article? I can’t seem to find it:(

    Reply
    • 3

      notjustcute says

      January 24, 2019 at 12:48 am

      Hi, Gracie! Looks like that link no longer works. Bummer! This is a similar one from NAEYC with objectives/activities for baking (https://www.naeyc.org/resources/blog/baking-math) and this one has a recipe for bread in a bag ( https://joyfulhomemaking.com/2016/12/kid-friendly-bread-bag-mini-loaves.html) . I hope that helps!

      Reply
      • 4

        Gracie Bowling says

        January 24, 2019 at 1:49 am

        Thank you so much!

        Reply

Trackbacks

  1. 147 Things You Don't Need to Do During the Holidays | Not Just CuteNot Just Cute says:
    December 4, 2012 at 2:29 am

    […] There are other areas where I have to make these same decisions.  How the tree gets decorated, whether or not we’ll get a Christmas card out before May, what to serve for Christmas dinner.  And the answer for us may not always seem the simple route for someone else.  (In spite of thumbing my nose at homemade gingerbread, I will ALWAYS opt for the homemade route when it comes to rolls!) […]

    Reply
  2. 147 Things You Don’t Need to Do During the Holidays | The Organized Parent says:
    December 18, 2013 at 11:34 am

    […] There are other areas where I have to make these same decisions.  How the tree gets decorated, whether or not we’ll get a Christmas card out before May, what to serve for Christmas dinner.  And the answer for us may not always seem the simple route for someone else.  (In spite of thumbing my nose at homemade gingerbread, I will ALWAYS opt for the homemade route when it comes to rolls!) […]

    Reply

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In early education, there is too much distance between what we know and what we do. I bridge the gaps that exist between academia, decision-makers, educators, and parents so that together, we can improve the quality of early education while also respecting and protecting the childhood experience.

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