The Giant Cake Recipe
Together the class makes a giant cake: on each lap of the course, children bring one ingredient (a colored beanbag) to the bowl, going over the flour mountain, across the egg bridge, through the sugar hops and under the milk tunnel. When every ingredient is in, the group stirs the batter and rises in the oven like a cake.
How to play
- The teacher reads a picture recipe: flour (climb the mat mountain and grab a white beanbag), eggs (cross the bench with a yellow beanbag in hand), sugar (jump the hoops), milk (crawl under the tables), and finally toss the ingredient into the bowl (a large box) (2 min).
- The teacher walks the course bringing the first ingredient and tosses it into the bowl, saying its name (2 min).
- Ingredient laps: on each lap, everyone brings the ingredient the recipe calls for, in order (flour, eggs, sugar, milk), until the bowl has everything (7 min).
- Mix the batter: in a circle around the bowl, stir with big arm circles one way and then the other (2 min).
- Into the oven: inside a rope circle, everyone crouches small and slowly rises as the teacher counts, until we're a giant cake up on tiptoes (2 min).
- Take it out, blow to cool it down and hand a pretend slice to each friend (1 min).
Rules
- One ingredient per lap, the one the recipe calls for.
- One child at a time on the flour mountain.
- Toss ingredients into the bowl from the line.
- In the oven, we all rise together, slowly.
Variations
Easier
For 3-year-olds, use only two ingredients with the teacher showing the color each lap, and a rope instead of the bench.
Standard
For 4-year-olds, four ingredients in order with the picture recipe in view.
Harder
For 5-year-olds, children check the recipe and remember the ingredient on their own, and add a fifth (chocolate) at a new station.
Adaptations
- Limited mobility: the child is the baker who receives the ingredients in the bowl and counts them, or follows a parallel route with the beanbag in the lap.
- Autism: show the recipe as a picture strip and cross off each ingredient once it's in the bowl.
- Visual impairment: give each ingredient a different texture (beanbag, fabric ball, scarf) so it can be identified by touch.
Learning goals
- Link low climbing, balancing, jumping, crawling and throwing.
- Follow a simple sequence toward a shared goal.
- Cooperate to finish the cake together.
Equipment for a class of 25
- colchonetas: 3
- banco sueco: 1
- aros: 6
- mesas: 3
- saquitos: 25
- caja grande: 1
- cuerda larga: 1
Teacher tip
Sort beanbags by color into baskets at each station so laps flow. If you're short on one color, any beanbag with a colored clip or ribbon works. End with the rising cake: it's the moment they remember most.
PatioLab has "The Giant Cake Recipe" and 8714 more activities ready to drag into your lesson and run from your phone in the gym.
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