All Twisted Up

One of our April goals in practical skill buildng is to work on our pouring and twisting abilities.  So of coarse, I thought of PRETZELS!  This activity was a big hit with the littles and while our our final product was no where near as well proportioned as the ones you get in the mall they were still pretty darn delicious. Not to metion it had way more value than I originally thought.

Practical
The kitchen always provides a wealth of opportunities to practice practical skills.  During this project the littles where able to pour and mix dry and wet ingredients.  We were also able to practice our twisting when rolling out the pretzels. My littles favorite part was making the "leller U" just before we twisted the shape!


Sensorial
We decided to knead half of our batch by little hands and half by stand mixer. Primarily, because if something went funky with one batch or the other (i.e. it didn't rise) we would have a back up.  Happily, both batches rose beautifully! 

Math
In order to get the right length role to twists the little need to measure the dough.  I have this wonderful mat I purchased so long ago I don't know remember the store name.  The kiddos had to measure to 4 inches for little pretzels and 8 for larger ones.  They loved it!

Science
Yeast, Water, Bicarbonate ... Oh MY!  This recipe called for yeast and bicorbanate of soda both provided fun opportunities to put on our observation hats.  We loved listening and watching  the yeast disolve into the luke warm water.  After it was incorporated into the dough and we had done all of our twisting it was time for the bicarbonate wash.  While the kiddos where not able touch the hot water needed to make the bicarbonate wash for the pretzels.  They were very well able to squeel with delight as it fizzed and bubbled!

Check out our pretzel recipe here: WN's Knead a Pretzel Post