Baking and reading (with recipe)

We've been cooking and baking with E. a lot ever since she could sit on the kitchen counter safely. (Check out my housework fun or Christmas gingerbread baking blog posts on our cokking adventures)

This week one day there was one of the rare occasions that L. (E.'s baby sister) was not sleeping in a sling on me so I managed to put her down and I could prepare a baking activity for E. while she was at the nursery.

As E. is familiar with the alphabet (check out this post on the alphabet activities and other ABC posts) and quite a lot of sight words (I haven't written about it separately but I should) and E. has been handling picture and story books since she was born, it is no problem for her to recognise/read certain words.

I wanted to expand her knowledge of recognising words in a fun way.

Here is our oat and pumpkin cookie baking and reading fun:

I prepared everything beforehand (maybe next time it'll be a measuring activity, when SHE can prepare all the ingredients).

Whoops... the R is missing from "butter" - sorry about the poor photo

Ingredients:

• 150 g oat flakes
• 100 g flour (I used oat and wholemeal flour mixed)
• 100 g sugar (I use Xylitol)
• 100 g butter or margarine
• 120 g pumpkin purée (pre-baked)
• 1 teaspoonful of baking powder
• 1 egg
  
  optional: 
• 5 g dried fruit of any kind (I use cranberries and raisins but you can add chocolate chips too)
• vanilla extract

I made little cards for her to read and I placed them in front of each bowl. The twist was I mixed them up before she started the activity. 

First, she needed to swap the cards around to place them in front of the right bowl.

After that she cracked the egg.

Then the mixing could start. She added everything in a big bowl. I asked her to report me what she was doing as in a cooking show.
- I'm putting the flour in.
- Now comes the butter.

After all this, I made little balls out of the mixture (she doesn't like to dirty her hands) and placed them on a tray covered with baking paper. Finally, I managed to convince her to flatten the balls with her fingers and palm.

It was a lovely treat after dinner time and we practised a lot of English. (Unfortunately the cookies were gone so quickly I couldn't take a photo of them)

Do you cook or bake with your little one(s)? Let me know what in the comments.