Activity Days: Cooking

In addition to teaching the 8-11 yr old English class at church each Sunday, I also am in charge of 'Faith in God' or 'Activity Days'.  It's a little different here in that it is both boys and girls (Belgium Scouting doesn't quite align with church teachings...for example the boy scouts fundraiser is selling beer on the corners).

At the beginning of each activity, we do an 'ice breaker' game. Then we have a lesson and activity. I try to have each activity fall under on of the 3 main areas: Learning and Living the Gospel, Serving Other and Developing Talents and in addition to that keep it cheap and fun. Some of the fun things we've done include Secret Service Agents, Article of Faith Scavenger Hunt, Goal Setting (complete with a domino object lesson) and Getting to Know you Jenga.

This week since there wasn't any mutual (we meet the same night so parents only have to make one trip), I decided to do a cooking activity and have it at our place so I wouldn't have to cart all my stuff to the church. We ended up having the best turnout we've ever had with 9 kids and 2 adults (me and our Translator Rachel...I am so very thankful every time she comes because there is no way the French kids would understand anything if she wasn't there). Our apartment is not very large, so I sent out an email nicely saying Parents and younger sibling weren't allowed to stay...I would only take the 8-11 yr old.

We ended up barely getting through everything. We talked a little about bread dough (I had already made some up). I demonstrated a couple things they could do with the dough including pizza, roll-ups, braids, crescents, etc. Then I had each of the kids roll and a create their own savory roll with pizza ingredients I'd prepared (marinara sauce, pepperoni, pineapple, onions, green pepper and mushrooms).

While I baked, cleaned the savory ingredients up and laid out the sweet ingredients, I had the kids make a valentine for someone else.  I prepped little bag for each of them in that included a balloon, candy, string, a "Home your Valentine's Day is bursting with fun!" note, and a "Go ahead burst my bubble" tag. They each wrote their own note to include also then stuff everything into the balloon. They could blow it up right before giving it to their valentine :). It ended up being a great activity for them that didn't need attention from me.

One of the girls gave her Valentine to her sister and her sister posted it on facebook later that night.  So sweet!  It really makes all the planning and prep worth it when I see the joy it bring to the kids and everyone else it touches.

Back to the activity, after eating their savory roll they decorated sweet rolls with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutella, speculoos, marshmallows and chocolate. It was fun watching them be creative with the ingredients and design. We put it on parchment paper and sent it home with them to cook.

The activity went crazy fast but I know the kids had a lot of fun. After they left, my kids came out of their room and wanted to their turn so I went through the activity with them at 9pm. Kinda late, but they had fun. Kherington made nutella/marshmallow rolls which were delicious and Kevin made a pizza and nutella calzone.