The Bakery Project

As we started reading Gingerbread Man stories, the kids started pretending the home living area was a bakery. I asked if they were interested in turning the whole area into a bakery and they became very excited! We sat as a class and came up with a plan on the Promethium Board showing a design for our bakery and listing the materials we needed.  They wanted the outside of the bakery to look like a Gingerbread House. They also wanted a sign with the bakery's name on it. They decided to call it "Santa's Bakery."  They also wanted an area for the bakers to work with supplies to make pastries and cookies, and breads to sell to friends in little bakery bags. Some wanted to make magazines for customers to read while they waited for their food!

First we worked on the outside of the bakery. They planned it together and got to work!  One team measured the surface for the walls with unifix cubes then used the measurements to cut brown butcher paper to cover the walls.

Some made candy to glue on the walls by painting paper tubes to look like candy canes. 

Another team designed and put together the walls. 

Another team worked on the sign. 

They wanted to make bread for the bakery to sell. I came across something that looked perfect at fairydustteaching.com to make the salt dough breads!  She has a great salt dough recipe and a great no-cook playdough recipe!  Her class made beautiful breads so I thought we could try it!  You can see her breads here at  http://fairydustteaching.com/2011/10/little-red-hen-making-pretend-bread/.

We researched different kinds of breads. One team made salt dough and everyone made pretzels, braided bread, cinnamon rolls, bagels or croissants. 

They loved the smell of the breads they made!

They made the refrigerator into a display case. 

Here is the finished bakery!

We used our project table for our baker's work area. I set up supplies on the table and my cooking team made spiced playdough and I made peppermint playdough to create cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. 

We set out cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice and some beads for decorating.  It smelled heavenly!

Some beautiful desserts were made!

Now that the bakery is finished, let the roll play begin!

We have also been doing a lot of gingerbread man activities! Our Gingerbread Man ran away so they are in the process of creating traps to catch him! They have a lot of creative ideas and may be asking to bring materials for their traps to school! They can bring any materials they feel they need!  I will post about our gingerbread happenings next week!