Cooking is good; I like eating nice food. Cooking on a fire is even better; the smells, the tastes, the challenge of creating the right sort of fire. Cooking with children is the best: it’s an adventure!
Down in the woodz we do lots of cooking with the children. Being out in the fresh air makes us all hungry and it’s wonderful to have nice snacks to eat but also we find it’s a great opportunity to develop the children’s language skills and vocabulary. Cooking presents opportunities to describe the texture, the smell and the taste of food, to talk about quantities, different ways of cooking, things we like and do not like to name but a few! WE are giving the children reasons to talk, time to think and ponder and we listen to what they say.
The food we cook with the children is not always complicated. Sometimes you just need a quick snack to give you a warm energy boost. That’s usually when we cook on sticks. Stick cooking is great as you can shorten or lengthen the time of the activity depending on the time you have available and how hungry the children are! If we have bags of time then we would look for suitable green (living) sticks to harvest and set the children the challenge of whittling the end into a point onto which to push their food. We do have a selection of ready made sticks for those children who are not inclined to whittle that day. The selection of food that you can now push onto your stick and cook is wide and goes way beyond the ubiquitous marshmallows! Malt loaf is a favourite with us but sometimes it’s as simple as a piece of apple or a crumpet to toast with butter. Yummy!