Singing a recipe rhyme with children before a cooking activity prepares children for the experience. Singing after a cooking activity facilitates the follow-up, including cleanup.
"Shortening Bread"
"Put on the skillet
Put on the lead
Mama's gonna make us some shortening bread
That's not all she's going to do
Mama gonna make some coffee too
Mama's lil baby loves shortening, shortening
Mama's lil baby loves shortening bread"
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich making represents cool cooking in this song, "Peanut Butter Sandwich" written by children's performer Raffi Cavoukian.
"A peanut butter sandwich made with jam
One for me and one for David Amram
A peanut butter sandwich made with jam
sticky sticky sticky stick"
Ella Jenkins' adaptation of "The Little Red Hen" in this excerpt includes the details of making and baking bread.
"Who'll bake the bread
Who will I say?
Who will bake the bread
On this fine day?"
Storybooks introduce the art of cooking and provide a context for classroom cooking activities. Dr Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" is a rhyming story of green eggs and ham.
"I am Sam
Sam I am
Do you like green eggs and ham?"
Cooking green eggs with ham creates an exciting activity. Mix blue food color in the yellow mix to achieve the green eggs.
"Stone Soup" is a story of soup that materializes from a stranger.
The poetic refrain is:
"Soup from a stone, fancy that,
Soup from a stone, fancy that"
Many classes make a stone soup with a cleaned stone and one vegetable contributed by each child.
Children recognize a fundamental musicality in cooking sounds such as bubble bubble boil. The "Popcorn" poem connects with a definite rhythm.
"You put the oil in the pot
And you let it get hot
You put the popcorn in
And you start to grin
Sizzle sizzle sizzle Pop
Sizzle sizzle sizzle Pop"
The P in the word pat simulates the patting sound in the "Potato Pancakes."
"Take a potato and pat pat pat
Roll it to make it flat flat
Fry in a pan with fat fat fat
Potato pancakes just like that"
Consider making cooking poems with the children. A cooking poem does not have to be complicated or rhyme. Record all of the comments from the children from a cooking activity to coordinate a group poem.
Children also respond to different language cooking poems. This nonsense chocolate cooking song adds a different dimension to a classroom cooking activity.
Excerpted from "A Mexican Chocolate Song."
The first line of the following is pronounced bought-tay bought-tay chock-oh-lot-tay.
"Bate bate chocolate
Bate bate chocolate"
The English translation is:
"Stir stir stir the chocolate
stir stir the chocolate"