It was a delight to read this letter from Rita. It came on a day where I needed an uplifting story and a reminder of why I do what I do and work so hard on Kids Cooking Activities. Thank you so much Rita for sharing your experience.
Do you wonder how you can get involved teaching kids to cook? Follow Rita's ideas and experience for some ideas on how to implement cooking with the kids in your life!
I'd love to hear your story and experiences too, feel free to contact me.
i just want to tell you what an inspiration you have been to me with my group of 8 girls who I've recently begun teaching to cook.
I started God's Girls over 3 years ago with a group of 9-12 year old girls teaching them to sew. But I saw you online one day and thought how great it would also be to teach my girls to cook since the schools don't have Home Ec for learning sewing and cooking anymore. (this is the inspiration I had for www.kids-sewing-projects.com as well)
This past Sunday was only our 2nd baking session but it went extremely well.
For our first session each girl made "bread in a bag" and her own homemade butter (some added honey to theirs).
Thankfully I had a couple of adult helpers!
I set up 3 work stations with 3 mixers, bowls, and 3 of all utensils. They came to the big table where the ingredients were to do their measuring. and my girls exceeded all my expectations! They made 36 mini cheesecakes, and were SO proud of their accomplishments (so was I)!
They are at a great age when they are so eager to learn new things and haven't yet become self-critical or self-doubting where they think they can't do something. one of the grandma's who helped me was scared to death to see her young granddaughters chopping away on the mini snickers bars with a huge knife! :-) As I shared pictures with the girls' families, I realized all that they had learned in that one session: they learned to follow a recipe, use the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, measure the ingredients accurately (and neatly!), use some specific cheesecake pans and "tamper" tools for the Oreo crust, use a HUGE knife to cut up the snickers bars into tiny pieces (not one injury either!) and make chocolate ganache and caramel sauce on the gas stove.
The only thing I didn't let them do was handle the pans in the oven. They learned SO MUCH in just one session without even realizing it, beyond having fun and making something delicious! They also helped wash and dry dishes! That's a very important part of cooking/baking, although not nearly as fun!
My goal is to have the girls prepare an entire meal for their parents and siblings by the end of the summer (that's about 50 people!). Nearly all of the recipes we'll use for the meal will come from the cookbook my church just had printed. In order to afford to buy the ingredients for the dinner, I'm going to have them bake a variety of goodies for a bake sale at our church in July after the services. (although we're not officially sponsored by my church, they've been so kind to allow us to use the library for our sewing and now the kitchen for our baking. the church is very. supportive of my group and my goals to first, grow young girls into godly young ladies with good morals and a love for Jesus, but also to teach them sewing and baking skills that they will use their entire lives.)
So I just wanted to tell you how useful your website has been to me with my girls. you give me so many ideas, but most of all the encouragement I need to step out and undertake something so huge, teaching girls with different levels of cooking experience and at different ages/attention spans to work together as a team and make something from start to finish in just 3 hours. Your website and newsletters encourage me and give me the confidence that I CAN do this!
~by Rita W. and her God's Girls
I'd love to share your experience with others, feel free to contact me.
Do you wonder how you can get involved teaching kids to cook? Follow Rita's ideas and experience for some ideas on how to implement cooking with the kids in your life!
I'd love to hear your story and experiences too, feel free to contact me.
i just want to tell you what an inspiration you have been to me with my group of 8 girls who I've recently begun teaching to cook.
I started God's Girls over 3 years ago with a group of 9-12 year old girls teaching them to sew. But I saw you online one day and thought how great it would also be to teach my girls to cook since the schools don't have Home Ec for learning sewing and cooking anymore. (this is the inspiration I had for www.kids-sewing-projects.com as well)
This past Sunday was only our 2nd baking session but it went extremely well.
For our first session each girl made "bread in a bag" and her own homemade butter (some added honey to theirs).
For this 2nd session, we had 5 girls who were able to attend, and I
taught them to make "Mini Snickers Cheesecakes with Homemade Chocolate
Ganache and Caramel Sauce".
Quite an ambitious recipe! Not difficult, just a lot of steps to it.
They are at a great age when they are so eager to learn new things and haven't yet become self-critical or self-doubting where they think they can't do something. one of the grandma's who helped me was scared to death to see her young granddaughters chopping away on the mini snickers bars with a huge knife! :-) As I shared pictures with the girls' families, I realized all that they had learned in that one session: they learned to follow a recipe, use the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, measure the ingredients accurately (and neatly!), use some specific cheesecake pans and "tamper" tools for the Oreo crust, use a HUGE knife to cut up the snickers bars into tiny pieces (not one injury either!) and make chocolate ganache and caramel sauce on the gas stove.
The only thing I didn't let them do was handle the pans in the oven. They learned SO MUCH in just one session without even realizing it, beyond having fun and making something delicious! They also helped wash and dry dishes! That's a very important part of cooking/baking, although not nearly as fun!
My goal is to have the girls prepare an entire meal for their parents and siblings by the end of the summer (that's about 50 people!). Nearly all of the recipes we'll use for the meal will come from the cookbook my church just had printed. In order to afford to buy the ingredients for the dinner, I'm going to have them bake a variety of goodies for a bake sale at our church in July after the services. (although we're not officially sponsored by my church, they've been so kind to allow us to use the library for our sewing and now the kitchen for our baking. the church is very. supportive of my group and my goals to first, grow young girls into godly young ladies with good morals and a love for Jesus, but also to teach them sewing and baking skills that they will use their entire lives.)
So I just wanted to tell you how useful your website has been to me with my girls. you give me so many ideas, but most of all the encouragement I need to step out and undertake something so huge, teaching girls with different levels of cooking experience and at different ages/attention spans to work together as a team and make something from start to finish in just 3 hours. Your website and newsletters encourage me and give me the confidence that I CAN do this!
~by Rita W. and her God's Girls
I'd love to share your experience with others, feel free to contact me.