Cook, Bake and Learn

Math 

• Practice patterning and counting by making fruit kabobs.
• Learn about fractions using different measuring cups and spoons for dry and wet ingredients.
• Explore student taste or meal preferences and display results on different types of charts and graphs. 
• Calculate fractions by measuring ingredients and calculate modifications to the recipe (e.g., how to double a recipe).
• Using a sample budget, make a grocery list and cost out the ingredients for a recipe. 
• Reading a nutrition facts table and % daily values. 
• Calculate the mass of a bulk purchase order for the student nutrition program and the cost to purchase it.

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Science

• Learn about how to keep food safe and proper handwashing.
• Make a recipe that celebrates seasonality of ingredients (e.g., maple syrup in spring, strawberries in early summer, winter squash in fall).
• Learn about states of matter using water as an example (e.g., boiling, freezing). 
• Study a variety of food preservation techniques (e.g., fermenting, drying, freezing, smoking, canning) and why they’re effective. 
• Explore how heat is transmitted in different cooking and baking methods (e.g., moist heat methods like poaching, steaming, and boiling vs dry heat methods like roasting, grilling, and sautéing). 
• Research how climate change is impacting Indigenous foods and foodways.

Language

• Read and discuss books about food and family traditions.
• Learn new vocabulary related to food preparation (e.g., bake, broil, grill, roast). 
• Write a poem, letter, song or other narrative to describe food experiences using the five senses.
• Draft a recipe as an example of a procedural text (e.g., how to make a salad or yogurt parfait).
• Write in cursive to create a draft restaurant menu board (e.g., with today’s specials).
• Critically analyze food advertisements.
• Research and synthesize information about a food-related topic using a variety of reliable sources.
• Learn about traditional foods and foodways in First Nations, Metis, and Inuit cultures and how nations are working towards Indigenous food sovereignty.

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Art

• Create paintings, drawings, prints or sculptures of students’ favourite fruit or vegetables.
• Create a collage using pictures of meals from around the world. 
• Role play and present with props various age appropriate kitchen skills and activities including families baking cookies, a chef in the kitchen, grandma baking a pie etc.
• Make a step-by-step video of students preparing a recipe from start to finish. 
• Create music with a makey makey piano using apples, bananas or carrots.

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Social Science 

• Help students learn to taste foods and support them in identifying and describing food.
• Research and/or prepare cultural foods (invite parents, local elders, local chefs to share their stories and foods).
• Explore how food connects people and communities through books and/or local cultural stories and events. 
• Explore and discuss changes in cooking practices over time and the trends related to eating in restaurants compared to cooking at home.
• Explore and discuss gender roles related to food and nutrition and how this has changed over time.