Student Contributor -C. Wooley
A group of children from the ages of 5-12 years of age made dog treats to donate to S.C.R.A.P.S. They created the treats, talked about the benefit the treats had to the organization and were able to see their treats being given to the dogs through a photo book!
I met with a group of 20 students from the ages of 5-12 at a local child care. I set up 5 stations, these stations had one ingredient per station with the proper measurement needed for the recipe. I then separated the students into 5 groups of 5. Each group was given a bowl and a stirring spoon. Each group was assigned to a station and while at that station, the students took turns adding the ingredients to their bowl. We did 5 different rotations, so all students could get their ingredients into the bowl. Then with teachers assistance, the students rolled out the dough, and made shapes to be placed on a cookie sheet to be baked. While students were cutting out the dog treats, we talked about how our treats would benefit this organization. Some older students were able to elaborate on the financial benefit of our donation, they were able to understand that by donating treats the origination would be able to spend more money on things like collars, water, heat and beds for the dogs. Some of my younger student’s added the benefit of helping the individual dogs, they explained that the dogs often are very sad and by giving treats the dogs could be much happier. I then baked the treats and delivered the treats to S.C.R.A.P.S, I was able to fill the treat bin with our treats, and give some to the dogs. Due to field trip restrictions, I was not able to take the students to give the treats out so I took pictures of the dogs receiving the treats. I created a phonebook to show the class how their donation benefited the dogs in the organization. The children were very excited and wanted to know when they were able to make more treats for donation!
Here is the recipe!
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup water
1/2 tbs baking powder
1 egg
2 cups flour
(1 strip bacon optional)
Bake at 350 for 30 min (Flip half way)
Makes 16 treats!
The project went very well. The stations I created were very effective in managing behavior and ensuring that each child got a turn at adding in the ingredients. This might not have gone as smoothly if I had more ingredients, or more children. I hadn’t actually planned on doing the rotations this way but once I had set out all ingredients, I had realized that the groups coincided with the number of ingredients. I had planned to have the children roll out the dough themselves but it worked better for myself and another co teacher to help to ensure the treats were not too thick. Over all this was an easy (but messy) project to complete that had a big affect on all ages of children.
