KS2-Cooking and nutrition
This list supports learning about cooking and nutrition with 7–11 year-olds. There are lots of ideas for developing skills used in D&T through focussed practical tasks, so children are able to apply these techniques to the designs that they make. The resources provide opportunities to explore different types of food and drink looking at the ingredients they are made from and the preparation and cooking processes involved. There are authentic contexts for children to design, make and evaluate their creations and made any changes to improve them and make them suitable for the occasion and people that they have been designed for. The activities support the NC objectives including:
- understand and apply the principles of a healthy and varied diet
- prepare and cook a variety of predominantly savoury dishes using a range of cooking techniques
- understand seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed
How Cool Is Your Drink?
A lovely activity to carry out, which will have your classroom smelling amazing! First ask the children to devise and carry out a survey to find out what kind of preferences your consumer has. Next they research different types of smoothie and the ingredients that go into them. Choosing the the correct equipment for cutting, slicing, squashing and blending, children create their smoothies. Once created, children can evaluate their final products from their own point of view and that of their consumers. After analysing feedback children can adapt their drinks to the identified needs.
This activity could be adapted easily for use in KS1.
Pleasing pasta
This lesson plan and supporting resources aim to help children understand that a healthy balanced diet needs to include carbohydrates. Originally designed for use with much younger children the activities can be easily adapted for KS2. Children look at different dishes that contain pasta and the different forms that pasta takes, perhaps sampling some themselves. They develop skills including cutting,, measuring, mixing and rolling in a practical task making simple pasta. Children can then think about designing their own pasta dish, which can be designed for a particular occasion and group of people. There is advice in this resource to support setting up your class for food preparation, also display cards and a letter with activity to send home to parents in order to continue the learning outside of the classroom. A really fun project to run with children, which works really well, when doing a project linked to Italy.
Designing and Making with Food at Key Stage Two: Baking Bread
This resource supports children in making bread rolls. Classes may wish to decide on the context for the activity, such as 'to make bread rolls for a children's party' or to base their designs on the characters in a book that the class has read. Before designing and making their own bread, children should explore different kinds of bread and present information about breads using tables and graphs and drawings. Once they've explored the different types of bread they will have more of an idea of the kind of end product they would like to produce. The techniques of bread making should also be learned, so children will be able to create their bread rolls.
Farming STEMterprise
This collection of resources provides a complete project for each year group at primary based around designing and making a product to sell in a farm shop. Click onto the resource and select your year group for a project that links science and design and technology and could be run over a half-term or in as a special project based week. Children will be involved in learning many skills including: considering seasonality, growing their own ingredients, considering nutrition when designing their recipes, using cooking preparation skills and designing responsible packaging. The year group projects are:
Year 3- work in groups to set up a farm shop business, design, make and market and new lunchtime food product
Year 4- work in groups to set up a farm shop business, design, make and market and new lunchtime food product, using dairy
Year 5- set up a farm shop business and design, make and market a new food product using ingredients they have grown themselves
Year 6- set up a themed restaurant business and design, make and market a range of dishes that feature a British food as their main ingredient.
What Shape Should Your Pastry Be?
The product children will design will be based on the children's experience of the traditional jam tart. To start each child will carry out market research to identify the needs and preferences of their consumers. This can be done by analysing different jam tarts and recording responses to appearance, taste and texture. They will explore the ingredients used, nutritional values and packaging. Children may wish to consider similar products common in different countries and/or cultures. This project may be easily adapted to create a savoury pastry which could be part of a balanced meal, instead of a sweet pastry.
10 Food-based sessions
This resource contains ten activity ideas which involve preparing healthy foods for different meals within the day. They explore healthy eating and the importance of a healthy balanced diet. Through designed for EYFS the activities, don't let this put you off. They are easily adapted for use with older children. The recipes are a starting from that children can use, before they evaluate what they have made, then use the information to adapt the recipes. They can also research other recipes for a product. Then each try them and have a class evaluation. From this they can think about how they may adapt recipes to create one for the whole class or even for specific people or dietary needs. There are lots of options for these activities, which support the development of skills in D&T and also the design, make and evaluate process. Each activity includes teachers’ notes, a letter to parents and information on safe food preparation.
The activities are:
- Tasty toast
- Delicious dips and dippers
- Scrummy scones
- Perfect plant salad
- Picturesque pizza
- Fabulous fruit salad
- Great green soup
- Pleasing pasta
- Brilliant bread
- Fantastic fish
Yummy yoghurt makers - CREST
This activity provide the context of a farmers in Bangladesh who earn money by turning milk into yoghurt. Children learn about the problems the farmers encounter and how they have begun a business making yoghurt from the milk their cows produce. Having been introduced to the context, children can try a range of different yoghurt and collect information from the class as to their preferences. They then learn how to make yoghurt nad consider how they might flavour it using different types of fruit. Finally they design and make their own yoghurt choosing the type of milk and flavour they wish.
Cooking
A selection of resources make for younger children but parts of them may be adapted for use with older learners. They support children to get an area ready to prepare food and show the importance of hygiene and safety in food preparation, whilst also helping children become familiar with some of the equipment used in a kitchen.
Design and Technology KS2 / KS3: The Secret Life of Our Favourite Dishes
A selection of clips taken from the BBC series The Secret Life of Our Favourite Dishes. They support learning about where the food we eat comes from and how it is made. They could be watched at the start of a topic on making a certain type of food, or used to demonstrate some cooking techniques involved in making the dishes..