Blog

Dec 21, 2023

Granville students practice problem solving through cooking

Nothing breaks Jack Anson's concentration as he stands in front of a hot stove

Nothing breaks Jack Anson's concentration as he stands in front of a hot stove continuously stirring a pot of simmering blueberries.

He has spent the last few weeks perfecting his cooking skills, and Jack has practiced them in an unlikely place — his Granville Intermediate School classroom.

It's all part of teacher Andrea Imhoff's special education English language arts class. Throughout the spring, students have learned to cook as a way to practice their reading comprehension and problem-solving skills.

It all culminated in a Friday morning baking show-style cookoff against teachers Brandon Messner, Laura Pleasants and Jennifer McCollister, all chosen by the students.

Jack said he's enjoyed the experience of cooking, and the fourth grader now has skills he will use in the future, he said.

"Since I know how to make this, I'd probably make this for my children in the future. They'd probably really like this even though it's really tart," he said of the blueberry syrup.

Imhoff said part of language arts is students learning to read technical texts, such as recipes. Cooking also gives students a hands-on way to practice problem solving skills.

She said that during one recent competition practice session a student was making waffles and realized the batter didn't look right. He reviewed the recipe and realized he didn't add almond butter, a key ingredient in the almond butter and banana waffles he was making.

"It also teaches the kids that sometimes a mistake isn't truly a mistake and you can't do anything about it. There are still things that we can fix and make better," Imhoff said.

She's also tied in math skills by not including certain measuring tools, such as the 1/2 cup measuring cup, but leaving the 1/4 and 1/8 cups and then working with the students on which one to choose.

Imhoff started all the lessons by bringing in her own baking supplies and equipment from home, but she and Messner recently received a Granville Education Foundation grant, which they used to purchase about $1,800 worth of supplies for the school's use. Since 1994, the foundation has awarded more than $250,000 in grant funding to Granville schools teachers.

For the cooking competition, two teams had an hour to complete their summer-themed meals.

Jack and his fourth grade classmates created an elaborate beach scene with almond butter and banana waffles using brown sugar for the sand, blueberry syrup as the ocean, two breakfast sandwiches as boats — complete with bacon as the sails — and finished it off with a sunny side up egg acting as the sun. As a beverage, they made a tropical smoothie with pineapple, blueberries and tropical punch Pop Rocks.

Messner, Pleasants and McCollister created a turtle using a Belgian waffle as the body with pieces of bananas as the legs and two little chocolate chips as the eyes. The scene also included kiwi as the seaweed and blueberries as bubbles from the turtle. They had a smoothie of their own that featured strawberries and bananas.

While the teachers did their best and received high scores from the judges, music teacher Emily Hartman and building aide Lea Ann Parsley, the students narrowly edged past them to win the school's first baking competition.

Not only were fourth graders cooking, but Imhoff's other class of fifth and sixth grade students acted as videographers to capture all the moments, which they would later use to create a baking show of their efforts. Their roles were reversed for an afternoon competition session.

Even though Imhoff only started teaching the students cooking skills a few months ago, she's already seen improvements to the students' problem-solving skills beyond the kitchen. She had many of the fifth and sixth graders the year before as well, and whenever they would run into a problem, they'd ask for help solving it or do nothing. Now it's completely different, she said.

While a student was making his Valentine's Day box earlier in the year, he decided he wanted a door on it. Instead of asking for help, he came to Imhoff with a plan of how to create one and where he wanted it, she said.

"He's now problem solving other problems where last year he probably just would have been like, 'Oh, well, I guess I can't have that door. I feel like they're now applying it to other areas in their lives," she said.

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