A Co-op Baking Day: Bread With a Group of Children, From Kitchen to Snack Table

A co-op baking day works best when the dough is ready as the children arrive. Bring a batch made at home, or mix it first thing so it rises during circle. Every child kneads and shapes a small piece at one long table. Bake the rolls while the children play outside, and eat them together at snack. Wash hands with soap, keep raw dough out of mouths, and collect allergies when families join. If you meet in a hall or church, ask for its kitchen rules before the first baking day.

For the bread itself (a simple recipe, rising times, and what each age can do at home), see baking bread with children. This piece is about baking with a group: eight or twelve children, several parents, and a kitchen that may not be yours.

Why bake together at co-op?

WECAN, the Waldorf early childhood association in North America, writes that for young children "we need look no further than the tasks of the home: cooking, baking, gardening, laundry, cleaning, and so on." Children learn these by imitation, working beside an adult who enjoys the work.

Many Waldorf kindergartens bake each week. The Denver Waldorf School says "every week we bake bread together in our kindergartens in preparation for snack time." At Kimberton Waldorf School, the children knead and shape buns, and then the group gathers to eat them, with an emphasis on gratitude and table manners.

A co-op can do the same, and a group adds something a home kitchen can't. Twelve small hands on one table, a tray of rolls in twelve different shapes, and a snack everyone made.

What a co-op baking morning looks like

The hard part with a group is time. Yeasted dough needs to rise twice, and a co-op morning is only a few hours. Fit the waiting around the parts of the morning you already have.

Here's one way, for a morning that starts at 9:00:

Time	Bread	Children
Before co-op	A parent mixes a big batch of dough at home, or the night before
9:00	Dough rises in a covered bowl	Arrive, free play
9:20		Circle
9:45	Cut the dough, one piece per child	Wash hands, knead and shape at the table
10:10	Rolls rise on trays	Wash hands, go outside
10:40	Rolls go in the oven. An adult bakes them	Outside, then story
11:10	Rolls cool	Wash hands, set the table
11:20		Blessing, snack, warm rolls

If your group would rather see the whole process, mix the dough at 9:00 with the children watching, and shape it after circle. It will need a warm room and a patient morning. The Waldorf co-op day schedule shows where snack and outdoor time usually fall.

Setting up the table

• One long table, wiped with hot, soapy water, and a little flour on it.
• A small board or a floured spot for each child, and an apron.
• Name each tray, or give each child a piece of baking paper with their initial on it, so the rolls come back to the right person.
• A parent at each end of the table: one showing the kneading, one helping the youngest.
• A song for kneading. The same one every baking day.

What can each age do?

In a mixed-age co-op, every child does the same work at a different depth.

• Under 4, with a parent, a child pats, pokes and rolls a small piece. It may not look like a roll, and that's fine.
• From 4 to 6, children knead a ball of their own and shape it into a snail, a knot or a little bread person.
• In grades 1 to 3, they knead properly, shape a braid and help weigh. In grade 3, a bread day at co-op sits well beside the farming block.
• From grade 4, they can mix the whole batch from a recipe card and help a younger child.

Adults do the oven, every time.

Kitchen space: home, hall or church

Where you bake depends on where you meet.

A member's home is simplest. You know the oven, and the family knows the kitchen. The limit is space: a home oven may take two trays at a time, so plan one roll per child plus a few spare, and bake in batches if you must.

A church or community hall kitchen often has a bigger oven and more counter, but it comes with rules. First Church Seattle's kitchen policy is a good picture of what to expect. It asks outside groups for prior approval and training on the equipment. It wants "one responsible person" for the group and a food handler permit. It also asks for a security deposit and a full clean-up. Your venue's rules may differ. Ask for them in writing, and ask who shows your baking parent how the oven works. Co-op meeting places covers what else to ask a hall.

No oven at all? Some groups knead and shape at co-op, then each family takes its child's roll home in a paper bag to bake that afternoon. The children still do the part that matters most to them.

For what a hall, church or insurer may require of a group that cooks, check with your state homeschool association, an insurer or a lawyer.

Hygiene with a group

Baking with twelve children asks for a few habits that a home kitchen can skip. Keep them the same every time, and the children learn them fast.

Wash hands with soap. The CDC says to wash "before, during, and after preparing food" and before eating, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds. The CDC suggests humming "Happy Birthday" twice to time it. On a baking day that's three washes: before kneading, after shaping, and before snack.

No tasting raw dough. The FDA says "never eat or taste raw flour, dough, or batter," because flour can carry harmful bacteria that only baking kills. It also says not to let children use raw dough as play clay. Make it part of the kneading song if you need to.

Clean up with soap. The FDA advises washing hands, surfaces, bowls and utensils with warm, soapy water after handling flour. The CDC says to wash counters and cutting boards with hot, soapy water.

Stay out of the baking when you're sick. After vomiting or diarrhea, the CDC says not to prepare or handle food for others. Wait at least 48 hours after symptoms stop. If it's your week as baking parent and you're unwell, swap. Your sick policy can say the same for children.

Put the butter away. If you serve butter or soft cheese with the rolls, the CDC advises refrigerating perishable food within 2 hours, or within 1 hour above 90°F.

Allergies on a baking day

Bread brings flour, and often milk, egg, honey or seeds. Collect every child's allergies when families join, and share the list with whoever plans the baking. Snack time at a Waldorf-inspired co-op covers how the group collects and shares allergy information and what to do about a severe allergy. On a baking day, a few more things matter:

• Check the recipe against the list. FARE lists nine foods that cause most allergic reactions in the US, and a bread recipe can include four of them: wheat, and often milk, egg or sesame. A plain dough of flour, water, yeast and salt has none of the milk or egg.
• Leave the seeds off unless you know no child is allergic to them.
• No honey for babies. The CDC says not to give honey to a child younger than 1. If younger siblings come to co-op, keep a roll without honey for them, or use sugar in the dough.
• A child who can't have wheat. FARE notes that a wheat allergy isn't the same as celiac disease, and families manage each differently. Talk with the child's parents before the day. They may prefer to send a wheat-free dough and a board of the child's own, or have the child do a different job, like churning butter in a jar.
• Wash with soap, not sanitizer. In FARE's summary of the research, soap and water or commercial wipes removed peanut allergen from hands. Plain water and hand sanitizer left traces on some. Wash the table with soap before and after.

Who does what

A baking day needs three adults with named jobs, on the same schedule as circle and snack. Homeschool co-op parent jobs shows how they fit with the rest.

• The baking parent makes the dough, sets up the table and leads the kneading.
• The oven parent learns the oven, handles the trays and keeps the children back.
• The washing-up parent washes bowls and boards with the older children, who can dry.

Bread through the co-op year

A weekly or monthly baking day can follow the festivals. Shape a dragon bread for Michaelmas, bake a loaf from new grain for the Harvest festival, and braid a flower bread for May Day. The festival pages have the recipes and the stories. If your co-op keeps a garden, the co-op garden can grow the wheat for next year's harvest loaf.

Starpath for co-ops is free to run. It gives the group a shared Waldorf-inspired program that follows the festival year, with a calendar and a jobs schedule, so the baking parent and the oven parent know their weeks ahead.

A baking day checklist to copy

Change it to fit your group.

• Venue kitchen rules, in writing (if not a home)
• Allergy list checked against the recipe
• Baking, oven and washing-up parents named
• Dough mixed (at home, or first thing)
• Table washed, floured, one board and apron per child
• Trays named, or baking paper with initials
• Hand washing before kneading, after shaping, before snack
• Oven on, and an adult beside it
• Butter, a blessing, and a table set for snack
• Everything washed with hot, soapy water before you go

Looking for a Waldorf-inspired group that bakes together? The Waldorf Map lists co-ops, parent and child groups and schools near you.