Barbeque chicken and Valentine's Day

Well, I'm quite relieved. Yesterday went much better than the previous session. One of my helpers from last time wasn't put off by hamburger chaos (thankfully) and came and helped again. I was also more careful to explain what specific help I needed from her and she was brilliant. She's willing to help at all sessions which is fantastic.

After last time, I kept recipe/ingredients really simple and the barbeque chicken was pretty much just mixing up the sauce that they then poured over the cooked chicken (and then popped back in the oven for a bit more cooking time).

The up side of keeping the recipe simple is that clearing up was minimal (after the children left at 5.00, we were all cleared up by 5.10). The down side is that we'd all finished cooking at 4.10 with 50 minutes still to fill!? However, they enjoyed the Ready Steady Cook game (they had to design a recipe from a bag of random ingregients and the winner got to take ingredients home) and they LOVED the sweety bracelet making which took about 25 minutes of quiet concentration. The quiz was less of a success as it was hard for all of the kids to stay engaged. I also got them all to lie down on the carpet, relax and listen to Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. It took about 10 minutes plus a stern talking to to get them all to listen, lie down and be quiet. Honestly, it's like herding cats...

It is really hard to know how hard to come down on them. With the extra kids that have joined, the group is noticeably louder and more unwieldy. If any of you have any tips on quietening/calming methods, do add your comments.

Yesterday was interesting in that it was parents evening across at the school at the same time (I went over for my daughter after cooking was over.) So more parents popped in and out during the session. One mum and three teenage sisters stayed for pretty much the whole time (although there was a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing in and out of the front door for cigarettes and mobile phone chat) And the mum and baby brother of my 16 year old helper stayed too. At the time, I couldn't help but wonder if all these other people present just made it all more stressful i.e. having to watch the door for security, small children around, increased noice level etc but on reflection, I realise how lovely it is too. To have family members come and hang out with us and help/do crafts is what it's all about, isn't it? I feel abashed at not having realised it at the time and reminds me over unhelpful leadership tendencies that want to control outcomes rather than see what delightfully unpredictable elements emerge.

So i think I'll go for a slightly longer recipe next time, that increases time they are cooking but doesn't increase set up/clearing up too much. I'm thinking baked salmon (they can have a happy time with lemon, butter or maybe maple syrup?? and foil wrapping) and then they can tackle some sort of simple sauce.

My thoughts are also wandering to the future. We finish sessions at Easter so what next? We have a new incumbent coming in April and it might be interesting to chat with her about what next/else may be possible. I'll keep you posted.