Pizza

Well, I think all the pizza making went well last time. Our first session of savoury food seemed to go down well. Seeing them kneed their dough (for the pizza base) was lovely.

And while it rose, we learnt about how bread marks all sorts of special occasions in life all round the world. They were a bit giggly by then so copious amounts of shushing preceded each child as they picked a country and read out the relevant interesting bread fact.

We then had reflection time on a parable/story about leaven bread. It was a little bit sideways but there were one or two moments of hush as I talked about the ways in which yeast has been used to tell thoughtful stories of wise men. I’m so glad I went to the trouble of getting the pizza boxes. The kids were so excited to take their creations home in them.

So to next week. Beefburgers and salad nicoise. I’ve also re-advertised and got an extra 4 people coming along. It seemed a shame to limit it to 12 when, now we’re not doing cakes etc, we’ve more space in the oven. I just have a horrible feeling it’s going to be even louder and crazier. I’m also going to tell them about the end of term meal and fold napkins with them as preparation for that. Better brush up on my napkin origami this weekend…

Happy New Year

We’re making pizza at this Thursday’s cookery (the first session of the new year). So I was presented with another opportunity in this pioneering project to put myself out there and risk humiliation – I went to the pizza take-away up the road and asked if they’d sell me 15 of their cardboard pizza boxes so my kids can take their pizzas home on Thursday safely in one piece. English is definitely not the first language of the take-away staff so my request was met with some confusion. However, that said, when they understood what I was after, they were very obliging in selling me what I needed and it even led to a conversation with one of them about a church he attends across the city.

This Thursday’s theme will be bread as they’ll make up their own dough with yeast for the pizza base. It’s amazing that, to add to the connections to maths (fractions on the measuring cups), personal skills (washing up/tidying up after themselves), learning about different cultures (American thanksgiving) and festivals (halloween, all saints day, Christmas), you can also connect food into geography. I’ve designed an exercise where they explore the different ways breads are used in celebrating rites of passage in different countries across the world (using a map we keep in the office with pins etc). I just hope the kids enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed putting it together. I’m also going to tell a story about a parable of leaven bread (GP) to help them explore the role of yeast in bread-making and its symbolism in some religious contexts.

I forgot to blog before Christmas but I had a really encouraging meeting before Christmas to review the autumn term. Two team members (one of them the curate at St Aidan) and I met and we all agreed it’s gone really well. We’ve also come up with a shape for the spring term than will culminate in the kids inviting parents to a meal which they cook and serve. This idea had occurred to me about two months ago but I’d shelved it as I thought it was too ambitious so it was brilliant the way someone else came up with the idea.