Okay, here's the deal :-)

I'm trying to seriously revamp the cooking portion of my math, reading,
and fine-motor development curriculum. I usually have about 24
students, ages 5 and 6. When we cook, it's in small groups (usually 6
or so students, depending on what else is going on and how much adult
help I can get). I don't have ready access to either a stove or an
oven (we're an old building and our one stove was recently placed "off
limits" by the fire marshall). Losing the oven -- as old and
inaccurate and spotty as it was -- is going to mean that I have to get
rid of quite a few cooking projects that I've done in the past few
years.

In addition to the benefits to the reading and math programs, cooking
has also been an important part of my science, art, and health
curriculums. Alaska children rank pretty low, nation-wide, for their
overall nutrition and exercise levels, and my students are no
exception. A big part of what I do is to expose them to food
alternatives. Our cooking projects are usually the class snack for
that day, and ideally I try to do one majorish cooking project each
week.

So here's what I'm looking for -- recipes that are at least
semi-healthy (no more no-bake cookies <g>) and that can be prepared by
young children with adult help and that don't require either a stove or
an oven and which aren't too expensive to make for 24 children (the
cost is a *big* factor, because we're not allowed to use budget money
for any food products. Either it gets donated by parents - which
happens occasionally - or I buy it all myself.

In my classroom I have:

- bread maker (we make bread about once a month already)
- microwave
- hand mixer
- dehydrater
- blender (I don't have one yet, but I'll either purchase one myself
for my room, or bring mine in when we need it)
- toaster oven (Again, I don't have one yet, but it's going into my
newsletter as a "wish list" item. Hopefully someone will have one
they're ready to get rid of)
- hot plate
- minifridge and I have access to a full-sized fridge and freezer.
- crockpot

Typically we make things like stop-light jello when we're learning
about safety signs, alphabet pretzles (back when we had an oven <g>),
crockpot applesauce, loaves of bread, cut-fruit animals (this is an
expensive one -- fresh fruit in Alaska isn't cheap -- but the kids love
it and their creativity shines and they all eat the fruit once they've
turned it into a sea monster), fruit-bat snacks (generally fruit
kabobs, ditto the expense note) when we do our Stellaluna unit,
butter-in-a-jar around Thanksgiving (that's a great one for a
high-energy day <g>), energy bars, bear biscuits and honey to go with
Goldilocks (again though, the oven issue now) -- we typically do about
30 different cooking projects over the course of the year, and frankly
*I'm* getting bored with some of them.

I want things that involve preparation that students can do --
measuring, easy cutting (butter-knife stuff), recipe reading (with
heavy picture clues -- I do those myself when I make the student
materials for the project), mixing, timing, and assembly that can be
done by children. So many of the no-bake recipes I have and that I've
found are either desserts/cookies/pies or things that need the stove
(and that doesn't work well with a hot plate -- it's just not quite the
same. Also, I'm not thrilled with having my students use the hot
plate. If I were working with one or two students at a time it would
be different, but with a full class in the room I want to be the only
one working with the hotplate -- 90% of the time it would be no
problem, but if there were a burn-accident with the hotplate, well,
it's not an issue for which I want to be responsible).

Now, if I were being difficult already, I'm also trying to pull away
from peanut butter based recipes. I haven't had a peanut allergy in my
room for several years, but peanut butter is expensive and it's good to
have a solid file of non-nut recipes for when a student with a peanut
allergy is there.

So I'm drawing on the expertise here. Anybody have tried-and-true
favorites that fit the above criteria? I've done a lot of Googling,
but again so much of what I'm finding is dessert oriented.

Thanks, folks!

Alexis

PS -- here's a favorite I thought I'd share. I do a big art unit on
color and color mixing. To introduce the unit, on the first day we use
food coloring to make trays of ice cubes -- two trays each of red and
blue (there's a little science involved there -- changes of state,
water + cold = ice. It seems simplistic, but you'd be surprised at how
many of these littles don't really know where ice comes from -- even
here in the Great Frozen North). Then on the morning of day 2 I have
each table make a small pitcher of lemonade (reading the picture
recipe, measuring the mix [fresh lemons are *way* expensive here --
usually around $1.00 each] and water and rolling and squeezing a lemon
for each pitcher. In the afternoon, at snack time, each kiddo gets to
choose an ice cube color -- red or blue -- and we make predictions of
what will happen when they add it to their yellow lemonade. A *lot*
(most) of these kiddos have no idea about primary color mixing, so they
have no idea what the color change is going to be like. Then, all at
the same time, they put their ice into their lemonade. The ooohs and
ahhs are excellent -- and not one of them forgot what happens when you
mix yellow and blue or yellow and red. We put the leftover ice cubes
in a glass and set it to melt (there's that science again <g>). I left
the glass by the outside door, and they forgot about it until right
before we left for the day and one of them "discovered" that the melted
ice cubes made purple water.

If anyone is interested, I'll share the results of the flavor vs. color
science fair project my class did. I was thrilled with their premise
and truly surprised by the outcome.