It is Harvest Celebration time
Like every year my son's school celebrates the Harvest. Every year they have a theme and the children's lessons are organised around it. This year the theme is bread.
Two weeks ago the headteacher asked me if I would be able to visit the school and talk about bread to the children of Year 2 and Year 3. I was of course very happy to oblige and what we decided is that I would talk about the process of making the bread but that it would be more excting for the children to actually make some bread.
To stay in line with the long fermentation process that I use I made the dough the night before and let it rest in the fridge ready to be shaped, proofed and baked the next day.
The class was then divided into 3 groups and each of them had the oppourtunity to shape a baguette or a few rolls. Unsurprisingly they all wanted baguettes!
We ended up with 18 baguettes. The kids really liked it and everyone enjoyed their baguettes. What a pleasure it is to see children with a big smile on their face !
This was last week. This week and to be ready for the Harvest Celebreation at the church, we needed a Wheat sheaf...
Since it was not meant to be eaten but displayed, the taste was not so important. You also don't want it to rise too much so that it keeps its overall shape.
This meant that the children could get their hands "dirty". They were able to do it all from start to finish. Again we divided the class in 3 groups. The first one made the dough while the ohter 2 assembled the 2 wheat sheaves.
It took a lot of dividing and shaping but with 15 little pairs of hands nothing is impossible. So they made about 40 stems and around 180 ears and of course we had to have a mouse or two.
I am proud of them. It is not easy to achieve something when you have 15 little pairs of hand around a table trying to align pieces of dough. But they did it!