Good Reads Library
Recipe For A Wonderful Thursday Morning Program
THIS IS A NON-RANTING ENTRY BECAUSE THIS MORNING WAS PURE FUN!
I did a story hour for 3-5 year olds this morning. Usually we end such programs with a craft, but today I built the program AROUND the craft--making soft pretzels:
Open 3 packages of active yeast. Pour it into a large bowl. Let the kids smell it--yeast has a strong, beerlike smell that some will like and some won't!
Add 4 Tbs of sugar and 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Let everyone take a turn stirring. Wait about 5 minutes (I sent the kids off to wash their hands), and you will see that the yeast has become foamy.
Add 3 3/4 cups of flour.(We put in half a cup at a time so all the kids could have a turn adding and stirring it in). A wet dough will form. Add a little extra flour and knead the dough. Even the kids who normally DON'T like to get their hands dirty liked doing this!
Send the kids off to wash their hands again. Add a little corn oil to the bowl and turn the dough to coat it lightly. Cover the dough, wash your own hands, and head into story hour for about 20 minutes.
Two books, a telling of "Stone Soup" with the kids dropping prop veggies into a big pot and a film of "In the Night Kitchen" later, bring the kids out to check the dough and marvel at how it has risen!
Divide the dough into zip-lock bags (it will make enough for about 12 kids to go home and make 2-3 small pretzels each). Send the kids home with baking instructions:
Heat oven to 475 degrees F
Pinch off bits of dough, roll into long "snakes", then shape any way you like.
Place on a greased/parchment covered baking sheet. Brush with a little butter, sprinkle with salt or sugar if desired.
Bake for 5-10 minutes until golden brown.
This program was a BLAST to do! I just wish the library had an oven as I had years ago in NY. Then we would be baking cookies, muffins and other such stuff!
Bake with your kids--the ones you work with or the ones at home. It's fun, it's NOT hard and they will be VERY proud of what they make!
In fact, when I go home tonight, JR is going to help me make challah rolls-- some of the dough we'll bake tonight, and some will go in the fridge for later in the week.
Yummmmmmm!
