Lil’ Falcon Cooking Academy Central High School 2017-18 Virginia FCCLA Foundation Mini Grant Recipient Advisor: Holly Roberts
Identify Concerns: Our concern was that many children in our community lack basic cooking skills and their parents lack the time to teach them and the confidence in their abilities. This causes two things, one students tend to eat convenience foods after school as snacks and two, parents rely on convenience foods and fast foods for dinner. We live in a small community where there are few restaurants but we are located off of a major highway so we have a convenience stop semi-affectionately referred to as “French Fry Row.”
Form a Plan We decided that we wanted to host a cooking class for elementary school students to give them the skills and confidence to be able to prepare simple meals and snacks at home. We decided to call it “Lil Falcon Cooking Academy” after our school’s mascot and our preschool program called “Lil Falcon’s Nest Preschool.”
Partners Mrs. Dorman’s 4th grade class Food Lion Virginia FCCLA Foundation Katie at Kitchen Stewardship
Planning Intro to Culinary students first identified the skills they thought were most basic and essential to the young chefs. They decided on: ● Measuring ● Mixing ● Cutting ● Stovetop ● Oven Students divided these into 4 lessons and each cooking group took a day.
Planning In their groups they decided on a recipe to make, developed the recipe, created worksheets with instructions and recipes for the students and created a grocery list. During this process they also learned about allergies as we learned that 1 little chef had a peanut and tree nut allergy while another was lactose intolerant. While groups worked on prep and worksheets, other students created the aprons for the students.
Cooking lEsson #1: Measuring and Mixing This day students met their high school buddy chef who taught them how to read a recipe, measure, and mix. They taught them the names of the tools that would be used. Then students worked in groups of 4-little chefs to measure and mix a trail mix.
Cooking Lesson #2: Cutting Soft Fruits and veggies Day 2, little chefs came back and learned correct knife holds and cutting techniques for soft produce such as berries, bananas, cucumbers, or celery. Little chefs then worked in groups of 5 to cut the fruit necessary for fruit salad. They also sang the wiggles “fruit salad” song as they worked.
Cooking LEsson #3: StoveTops and Griddles Day 3 was a double-header as we tried to squeeze 2 recipes and skills into one day. The first set was cracking an egg and using the stovetop while the second was flipping on a griddle and using small appliances safely. The class split in half and each half made individual omelettes and “fancy” grilled cheese-- grilled cheese with meat, cheese, and veggie choice. It was crazy and we ran a little late.
Cooking Lesson #4: The Oven Day 5 was the last lesson but not our last time with our little chefs. They learned about using the oven and how to roll out a dough and made very simple cream biscuits from Paula Dean. By utilizing self-rising flour we were able to make biscuits with only 3 ingredients.
Parent Night We invited our little chefs back Friday evening with their parents. The big chefs set up the classroom like a restaurant and little chefs took orders from their parents for fancy grilled cheeses and drinks. Parents filled out surveys while they waited and everyone had a blast. Parent reviews were glowing! Some little chefs had already tested out their cooking skills at home! The 4th graders got to take home their aprons that night to continue the cooking at home. The 4th graders did most of the dishes from parent night and the parents were ecstatic.
Follow Up Our local newspaper ran an article about our cooking academy and we processed the surveys completed by the parents. All 12 parents rated every questions a 10/10. They believed the cooking lessons were worthwhile, got their child excited about cooking, felt the aprons were a valuable motivator for students, and felt the parent night was valuable in seeing what the kids had accomplished. The foods were rated by the kids as 8.3 for the trail mix, 9.8 for the fruit salad, 8.1 for the omelette, 9.5 for the “fancy” grilled cheese, and 9.7 for the biscuits. Parents raved about how lucky they felt that their child’s class was chosen. One mom reminisced about when she was in school here and was in FCCLA and how valuable it all was for her. On Tuesday of the week of the cooking lessons a local newspaper, the Free Press came and did an article on us. Their readership is about 4,000 throughout our county. They put a large color picture and described all we would do that week.
The future The culinary students did their own reflection and wondered if we could somehow find this groups of students again to do a more advanced cooking lesson in the next school year. We also talked about the crock-pot style project where we send home ingredients and crock pots for students to cook with their families. If something were to be changed for next time it would be to split the small appliance/flipping lesson and stovetop/egg cracking lesson up into two days since we ran out of time on that lesson day trying to squeeze two in.
Thank You! Special Thanks to the Virginia FCCLA Foundation and the parents students and teachers of Mrs. Dorman’s 4th grade class!
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