Baking Transformations
Here's What To Do
Choose a favorite family baking recipe that’s special to your culture, such as making tortillas, pita or naan, or a special holiday cake or bread.
Measure and mix the dry ingredients (like flour, sugar, yeast, baking powder, etc.). Observe the dry ingredients.
Measure and add in the wet ingredients (oil/butter, water, eggs, milk, etc.). As you add each wet ingredient, observe and discuss how the mixture changes.
Bake! If possible, set a few timers before baking is done, and observe how the batter is changing at different points in the baking. Before eating, observe the final product.
Put PEER Into Action
Pause:
- "Let's get ready together by collecting the ingredients we need."
Engage:
- "Let's observe this mixture of dry ingredients. What does it look like? Smell like? Feel like? Is it hot or cold? Wet or dry?"
- "What did we do to the ingredients to change them into something new?"
Encourage:
- "I always learned to add the water really slowly and carefully. Let's see if we can do that together. How does the texture change as we do it?"
- "What do you notice about the size and shape since it's baked for a few minutes?"
Reflect:
- How did the ingredients change? Do you think we could change them back to how they started?
Not quite ready?
Instead of making a whole recipe, do a few simple kitchen experiments like mixing water into flour, or mixing vinegar into baking soda. Talk about the changes that happen.
Ready for more?
Conduct kitchen experiments to find out what happens if you skip or change ingredients (example: leave out the baking soda/powder and compare how it turns out differently).
As your child masters this skill...
They will be able to make observations and describe how non-living things can change.