Why pre-schoolers should learn bread making


Person Mixing Dough
Source : Life of Pix

   With at least a 30 000-year-old history, bread has evolved into being a staple in our diet. During this uncertain COVID-19 period, the non essential services are not allowed to operate their businesses; but we see bakeries that sell mainly bread are exempted from the suspension. Thus it is not that difficult to understand why baking bread is considered an essential service. If bread is life, knowing how to bake bread should naturally be considered a very basic life skill.

Here we have 3 reasons why pre-schoolers should learn how to bake bread (other than having fun in kneading and eventually devouring the end product)

1) The farm-to-table philosophy is embraced
This is where the pre-schooler's food awareness can be raised - by first introducing them to the sight, sensory and taste of the various ingredients. They will then learn that food do not necessarily come from supermarkets, or bread from a bakery.

2) Fine motor skills are developed
Kneading the dough, rolling and forming them into shapes, all these will no doubt strengthen those tiny hand muscles.

3) STEAM activity
Children can experience the magic of chemistry when they mix the different ingredients together. In order for the right science reactions to occur, an oven or breadmaking machine has to be present. Then for those who are into experimenting, they may spend more time engineering the bread at the dough formulation stage. Simultaneously they can bring in the arts by applying decorating techniques in a way that makes a simple bread turn out cute and appetizing. Finally Math is applied with the help of measuring scales, the kids are required to ensure all the measurements are exact.