Cooking fun at The Little Things
Over the Vesak Day holiday, Sean and Ryan attended a cooking class at The Little Things.
The Little Things is a cooking school for children (aged 4 to 12) started by Emily and Valerie, a pair of friends who share a love of food and a passion for educating young lives.
The objective of the school is to develop 'self-savvy' individuals.
Along with the trained facilitators, children are taught how to cook in a real kitchen, complete with real tasks. In the weekly sessions, children take on a variety of experiences and challenges such as meal-planning, food preparation (from the market to the table!), food cultures, etiquette, home-science experiments, home-crafts, presentations, and even team projects for the community.
The curriculum aims to cultivate intangible and essential life skills such as independence, decision making, team work, spatial awareness, resourcefulness and a thirst for knowledge - through an experiential journey with food.
It is really learning made FUN!
When we arrived that morning, Emily and Valerie gave everyone a little introduction about the school, the lesson for the day and brought out the special ingredient of the day: bananas!
The children donned little aprons and were given their first assignment: banana pancakes for breakfast.
They broke up into small teams and worked together chopping and mashing bananas, measuring their ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, eggs, cooking oil) and mixing them together before cooking them in the frying pan.
Sean relished the hands-on experience and was able to follow instructions pretty well.
It was Ryan's first sit-down class. I was surprised Ryan actually managed to sit through all 2 hours of it, even though he did get a bit bored and antsy near the end!
The facilitators were really patient and helpful especially with the younger ones and I really appreciated that they encouraged the children to try everything from beating the eggs to scooping the batter to dealing with a hot frying pan.
Next up, the children made their own banana icecream. They got to go up one by one and blended their own icecream.
Emily explained that in their regular weekly classes, the children would usually start by doing their own 'shopping' for ingredients in the pantry. They do most of the preparation and cooking entirely by themselves. They also carry out food-related experiments or crafts or go for small excursions to the market, etc. At the end of the session, the children are encouraged to jot down their experiences in a journal.
Our group that day was quite big and the kids were of varying ages so we weren't able to do all of that.
Still, it was a really good experience for the children to follow through the preparation and cooking process from start to finish, and finally be able to eat the fruits of their labour.
It was easy to tell from the happy faces and messy flour-stained aprons of the children that they had fun.
If you are keen to find out more about The Little Things, you could drop them a note to ask for their class schedule or check out their upcoming holiday program for the June hols.
The Little Things
215H Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574349
Tel: 64563140
General Enquiries: thelittleemail@gmail.com
The Little Things is a cooking school for children (aged 4 to 12) started by Emily and Valerie, a pair of friends who share a love of food and a passion for educating young lives.
The objective of the school is to develop 'self-savvy' individuals.
Along with the trained facilitators, children are taught how to cook in a real kitchen, complete with real tasks. In the weekly sessions, children take on a variety of experiences and challenges such as meal-planning, food preparation (from the market to the table!), food cultures, etiquette, home-science experiments, home-crafts, presentations, and even team projects for the community.
The curriculum aims to cultivate intangible and essential life skills such as independence, decision making, team work, spatial awareness, resourcefulness and a thirst for knowledge - through an experiential journey with food.
It is really learning made FUN!
When we arrived that morning, Emily and Valerie gave everyone a little introduction about the school, the lesson for the day and brought out the special ingredient of the day: bananas!
The children donned little aprons and were given their first assignment: banana pancakes for breakfast.
They broke up into small teams and worked together chopping and mashing bananas, measuring their ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, eggs, cooking oil) and mixing them together before cooking them in the frying pan.
Sean relished the hands-on experience and was able to follow instructions pretty well.
It was Ryan's first sit-down class. I was surprised Ryan actually managed to sit through all 2 hours of it, even though he did get a bit bored and antsy near the end!
The facilitators were really patient and helpful especially with the younger ones and I really appreciated that they encouraged the children to try everything from beating the eggs to scooping the batter to dealing with a hot frying pan.
Next up, the children made their own banana icecream. They got to go up one by one and blended their own icecream.
Emily explained that in their regular weekly classes, the children would usually start by doing their own 'shopping' for ingredients in the pantry. They do most of the preparation and cooking entirely by themselves. They also carry out food-related experiments or crafts or go for small excursions to the market, etc. At the end of the session, the children are encouraged to jot down their experiences in a journal.
Our group that day was quite big and the kids were of varying ages so we weren't able to do all of that.
Still, it was a really good experience for the children to follow through the preparation and cooking process from start to finish, and finally be able to eat the fruits of their labour.
It was easy to tell from the happy faces and messy flour-stained aprons of the children that they had fun.
If you are keen to find out more about The Little Things, you could drop them a note to ask for their class schedule or check out their upcoming holiday program for the June hols.
The Little Things
215H Upper Thomson Road
Singapore 574349
Tel: 64563140
General Enquiries: thelittleemail@gmail.com