This Thanksgiving, consider including your students or kids in the preparation of a Thanksgiving meal. I teach at St. Boniface School in Oak Harbor, OH, and for the past five or six years, we have been putting together a Thanksgiving feast, prepared by the students and teachers, for the whole school, staff, and parish staff. It is a great learning experience for the students, and they more appreciate the time and effort that is put forth in putting together a meal of this size. Think of the learning that can be done with preparing food from scratch for a feast.
I usually prepare mashed potatoes with my students. We spend time peeling and mashing potatoes. On the surface my students learn how to make mashed potatoes: Potatoes, peel, boil, mash, butter, milk, salt, and pepper. If you dig a little deeper the students are putting time and effort into making a dish that will help feed our whole school and staff. They are giving of themselves for the greater good. Not to mention the history lessons that can be taught about foods that people at in the past compared to now. Or Science, the fact that we have flake potatoes now.
There are many different ways that this lesson and activity can go. Again, remember that the potatoes are only one part of the feast. As we are working on our potatoes the children get to see kids from all grade levels creating food masterpieces for the feast as well. This shows the students that we are all a part of one body, we are all working to one end goal… sounds a little like our Christian faith doesn’t it?
How does my school orchestrate something like this? As long as you have all teachers and your principal on board it can be fairly simple. Each teacher takes a portion of the meal. At our school we have stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, & breads. Each teacher takes one of these and prepares it with their class. The vegetable and turkey are done by the teachers. We serve the meal family style in the cafeteria.
Of course if you homeschool and cook for Thanksgiving, chances are your children are already involved in preparing your Thanksgiving feast.
We only have 36 students at my school which makes this a little easier than I would think it would be at a larger school. With staff from our school and parish along with the students we usually serve around 75 people.
The students and staff LOVE doing this. It is never too much work, and it is always beneficial to our students and staff.
