Baked Mashed Potato Hills

Wednesday 24th September 2018

Our group today made some delicious potato bites made with whipped mashed potatoes that are baked in the oven until crispy on the edges, and smooth in the middle.

Cooking can boost a child’s self-confidence. As educators we wanted to support our children in taking on the task themselves. Working together with children as part of a team demonstrates how the combined efforts of more than one individual can produce greater results. We found that cooking experiences provide our children with a sense of responsibility and satisfaction with their efforts. Preparing meals together provides quality time that leads to bonding, which helps boost children's self-confidence.

Cooking with children is one of the best ways to make connections across and amongst many disciplines.

With this experience, the learning outcomes include:

+ Healthy food choices: Modelling healthy food choices (including eating butter in moderation!) Preparing meals will help our children build a healthy attitude toward eating and food that will continue on into their adulthood.

+ An introduction to basic knife skills

+ To be mindful of always washing our hands with soap and water before preparing a meal

+ Complex chemical reactions with food (did the potatoes change their form in the oven?)

+ Learning mathematics in fractions through measurement. Our children will observe math in the context of real life, which helps to lay a basic math foundation.

+ Understanding the concept of time: Setting a timer and waiting for it to alert us when our food is done cooking

+ Pre-literacy and reading foundations: Reading recipes aloud is another opportunity for our children to enrich their vocabulary through listening to new words or different ways they are put together into instructions, rather than a story.

To begin our experience, we made sure to connect our activity back to healthy eating practices. We explained that eating the right balance of foods from the food pyramid will help us make sure our body will get all it needs to stay healthy. We should aim to eat three balanced meals a day with healthy snacks in between if we need them. We explained that potatoes are high in fibre and is a starchy food that provides us with energy. What we place in our bodies provides us with energy.

The educators brought in a few ingredients for the recipe. This included:

+ A 2kg bag of russet potatoes

+ 4 sprigs fresh rosemary

+ Block of butter

+ Pink Himalayan salt

The potatoes were prepared beforehand and were boiled and left to sit and cool. Our children participated in peeling the potatoes and then cubing them into small sized pieces.

We then cubed some butter into a large bowl. From there we combined the rosemary, the butter and sprinkled the salt into the large bowl of potatoes and instructed the children to mash the ingredients while we sung a song until the lumps had disappeared and it had transformed into a softer texture.

One at a time, we all had a go at filling the piping bag with the mashed potatoes and using the largest star point nozzle to squeeze out pattern mounds onto the baking paper. The educators then melted some butter for the children to then brush the mounds. As the potato hills cooked, Kevin our chef prepared lunch with steamed veggies and sausages for us to enjoy as part of our lunch time experience.