TASTY TUESDAY!

Tasty Tuesday isn’t just about eating your favorite snacks together. It’s also about cooking together and connecting math with literacy skills and science while introducing ways to incorporate healthy habits into children’s lifestyles.

To help my children with math, I had to find where math had its groove in our life—where it was applied and practical. I didn’t want to pass on my math fears! Because I teach baking, we used simple math concepts, methods, and measurements, and we enjoyed the results. Children often want to help—and help sample the finished product! Find time, at least once a week, to hold baking sessions that can start math conversations and calculations!

Baking math begins with forming a habit called mis en place—everything in order—“ducks in a row”—before you ever put the flour in the bowl. Bake together and build math skills with these 10 baking habits:

1. Pick an ingredient your children have read about—apples, blueberries, carrots, butter, zucchini. Ask children “What shapes do you see?” Bake waffles, pancakes, bread, and pizza.

2. Choose a recipe with simple ingredients and 1, 2, 3, directions. Recipes at HomeBaking.org and KidsaCookin.org (Spanish or English) are a great start. Check your library for Cooking Class and Baking Class by Deanna F. Cook—perfect for young bakers.

3. Read the recipe, top to bottom, reading aloud ingredient names, amounts needed, oven temperature, baking time, and steps, beginning to end.

4. Ask, “What ingredient is used in the smallest amount?” “Which is the largest amount?” “Is there more flour than sugar or butter?”

5.Find each ingredient and place it on the counter. Ask your child to help put the ingredients in the order they will be used.

6. Offer children under age 2 the dry measuring cups to use as stacking cups. By age 3, they can hand you “the littlest cup,” (1/4 cup), the “medium-sized cup” (1/2 cup) or, you can ask, “Which cup has a 3 on it (⅓ cup)?” Help children fill the cups and level the measure off. Let them add the ingredients to the mixing bowl.

7. Bake the same-sized cookies, muffins, and loaves. This isn’t just to avoid fights over the biggest cookie! Help 4-year-olds work on hand–eye coordination by scooping batter or dough. Ask them to guess why all the cookies or muffins on one pan need to be equally spaced and the same size. (All will bake the same—if some are big and some small, the big ones might be raw while the little ones could be burnt.)

8. What is a fraction—or part of a cup? Have your 5-year-old measure two ½ cups of flour and transfer flour to the 1 cup measure. Show them that “1 over 2” is ½ cup; if the ½ cup is used twice it will equal 1 cup. This may be done with ¼ (four ¼ cups = 1 cup) or ⅓ (three ⅓ cups = 1 cup).

9. Check the oven—Ask if it is empty. “How many racks are in it?” “We will use the middle rack—which one is that?” Heat the oven to the temperature in the recipe—have your older children match the oven degrees in the recipe to the oven dial or toggle up to the degree number. Ask, “How hot will the oven be?” Compare and contrast the oven’s heat to a hot summer day—the oven is 3 to 4 times hotter! Remind your children: ONLY adults should load and remove pans from a hot oven.

10. Get a simple food scale. Help older children weigh their pancake, muffin, or bread serving to see its net weight. “Is it 1 ounce?” That’s one serving. “Does it weigh more?” “How many bread servings is your pancake?” Weigh the ingredients after measuring them. See if your child can get 1 cup of flour to weigh 4.25 ounces three times in a row!

Above all, wash hands before you begin and after you handle flour and raw batter or dough to reduce the number of bacteria on your hands.

SHARON DAVIS

Sharon Davis is a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher and test kitchen professional with the Home Baking Association, a nonprofit dedicated to extending food skill education to youth educators at home, school, care centers, and communities.

“How do I get my child to eat their vegetables?

As a child nutrition expert with 13 years of experience working with families and early childhood programs, that’s the question I’m most often asked. Families know that healthy eating is important for their children’s developing bodies and minds, but how can they introduce new foods so that children will accept them?

How you feed children matters as much as what you feed them. Serving a variety of healthy foods in a positive mealtime environment can make the experience enjoyable for everyone. Try these tips to help children develop healthy eating habits.

1. Remove the pressure. Making your child try something they don’t want to eat can backfire, setting up a contest of wills or teaching them that they don’t have control over their eating. They should decide what and how much to eat from the foods you put on the table. To limit food waste, start by offering smaller portions.
2. Serve veggies early and often. The younger children are when they are exposed to vegetables, the sooner they will grow to like them. Once your child is ready to start solids, expose them to a variety of plain vegetables without any fruit or sweeteners mixed in. Once they have transitioned to table food, offer vegetables two or three times a day.
3. Keep trying. Children may need to see a food many times before trying it, so continue offering previously refused foods. Include them with a favorite meal (green salad next to a favorite pasta dish).
4. Mix it up. Do you always serve steamed vegetables? Try roasting them with different seasonings, or offer veggies raw or with dip. Many preschoolers like the crunch of raw vegetables (cucumbers, bell peppers, carrot sticks).
5. Encourage your child to help. Young children love to be helpers. Your preschooler can help wash vegetables, tear lettuce and greens, or arrange sliced veggies on top of a pizza.
6. Show it or grow it. Show what a vegetable looks like before you prepare it. Consider planting and growing seeds in a pot, planter, or garden with your child.
7. Be a role model. Your child notices what you eat, and they may try something they see you enjoy. It’s okay to follow your own preferences, but avoid making negative statements about the foods being served.

Children get nutrition over days and weeks, not individual meals, and it’s normal for your child to eat all their veggies at one meal and none at another. Following these tips will help children grow into healthy eaters. If you have concerns, reach out to your child’s doctor or a registered dietitian for support.

Explore the wonder of learning with your children anytime, anywhere! As your children head back to school, do these simple everyday activities together to reinforce their learning.

At mealtimes

Have fun with food words while you eat. For example, if you serve potatoes, chicken, and peas for dinner, talk about which of the foods begin with the same /p/ sound. Look for other items on the table that begin with /p/ sounds, like plate or pepper. You can also take turns coming up with words that rhyme with something you or your child is eating. For example, cheese rhymes with peas.

In the kitchen

Create new recipes or follow favorite ones with your child. Count ingredients together. You can count the number of apples for a pie or the number of carrots to add to a stew. Show your child the recipe so he can see what a written recipe looks like.

At the grocery store

Look for letters everywhere—on food labels, signs in the store, and magazines on the racks at checkout. Give your child a packaged food item, like a box of cereal. Point out different letters (start with the first letter in your child’s name) on the food item and ask your child to find more of those letters on other foods in the store.

On a walk around the neighborhood

Hunt for shapes with your child by looking for them in your community. You can find rectangles in buildings (windows and bricks), circles in cars (wheels), and triangles in signs (yield signs). Take pictures and create a shape book at home.

At the playground

Build your child’s position vocabulary by talking with her about what she’s doing—going up and down a slide, crawling across a bridge, standing under a tree, or sitting on a bench.

Feel free to contact me with any questions regarding your child's 4K preschool experience.

Email: jennifer.willoughby@superior.k12.wi.us
Website: https://www.superior.k12.wi.us/schools/earlychildhood
Phone: 715-394-8700 (10184)