A few days ago, a video about making fried eggs with tomatoes became a popular topic. A college student who just came to the United States was anxious about how to prepare this popular Chinese dish for a class party, and his parents had to teach him early that morning. The video raised a lot of discussion about children’s survival skills for their daily lives, which is not a problem at Shenwai Longgang International School (SLIS).

Starting from October 2017, SLIS offers a weekly cooking class, which is an elective class for all students. In the past month, the teacher taught the children the ingredients, such as cheese, fruit and yogurt. The teacher also cooked with them, including fruit sticks and yogurt cakes. In addition, when attending the parent workshops held by the school, the parents were recommended to let children get engaged in budgeting and reservation processes for family trips and daily life, so as to promote the children’s math skills and to teach children everyday life skills.

The “Kitchen Classroom” was put into use on November 8, when students were tasked to make their “masterpiece,” French toast. At first, the teacher explained all the ingredients, such as eggs, toast, milk, etc. The highlight emerged when children started their preparation.The first step was to pour the milk, which was not difficult for the children. Next was to knock the eggs, which was a little challenging for the kids. When they knocked too hard, the eggshell and the egg mixed together. When they knocked too gently, the eggshell was not broken at all. The students discussed this for a while before working out a solution.

After putting the bread into the egg, the children went to the stove with the teacher. They had seen peanut oil, flat frying pans and spatulas before but hadn’t used them, and now came the chance. The teacher first demonstrated how to fry the French toast. “So scary! Will the oil spill out?” “How do we put the toast into the pan?” During the demonstration, the students raised many questions. They stood far from the stove at the beginning, but gradually got closer.

Then it was the children’s turn. At first, they had no idea what to do, not daring to put bread into the pan after several attempts. Finally, everyone became skilled and calm when tossing and serving the toast.

(Fu Bin)