The free Life Skills Bread Baking Program, that was recently brought to Sunnyvale Middle School, has reached more than 190,000 students nationwide since it began in 1992, providing students an opportunity to practice a fun, real-world application of skills they are already learning in school ~ math, science, reading, following directions, and problem solving. Equally important, students make a positive impact on others through their baking skills.
Nearly 800 sixth and seventh grade students at Sunnyvale Middle School watched closely as King Arthur Flour bread baking instructor, Pam Jenson, taught them how to make bread dough and turn it into twisted loaves, regular loaves, pizza, and cinnamon rolls with the help of Sunnyvale Middle’s student assistants, Cassidy Kinderman, Annamarie Kelly, Adam Sproat, Akshar Patel, Grace (Haeun) Park, Bella Myers, and Isabel Serrato. Each assistant received a generous gift of a King Arthur Flour apron to wear during the demonstration. During the 50-minute presentation, Mrs. Jenson instructed the eager assistants, and the excited audience, on measuring ingredients and how to use bread making techniques such as kneading, rolling and shaping dough. Mrs. Jenson incorporated a lot of math and science into the program while making it interesting and fun for the students as they observed the art of bread making.
After the demonstration each student received a bread baking kit consisting of two kinds of King Arthur Flour, yeast, a dough scraper, donation bag and tie, and a recipe booklet. Although each kit makes nearly five loaves of bread, students were asked to bake two delicious loaves of bread, one for their family and one for them to donate. Sunnyvale Middle School donated 412 loaves of bread baked with love to Sunnyvale Community Services for distribution to over 500 seniors in our community as part of this program. Although Connie Byun, teacher at Sunnyvale Middle School, hosted the program, she said, “it could not have been possible or successfully executed if it had not been for the hard work of all the students, staff, and teachers at Sunnyvale Middle School.”
The King Arthur Flour Company is based in Vermont, but baking instructors of the Life Skills Bread Baking Program travel across the country to schools to show students the art of baking along with the art of giving back to their communities.
For more information, including how-to videos and recipes, regarding the King Arthur Flour Program please visit: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/baking/life-skills-baking.html
Article by Deborah Dodge
