What a joy to read the suggestion that licking ice lollies and kneading bread should be on the school curriculum (Report, 20 August). My two sons are now in their 40s, but for six years across their junior school classes, as a mum, I visited working windmills with each class, bought flour and baked bread at school with small groups of children until they all had made some.
It was a great way to show them the process, from the farmer sowing the seed to the miller producing the flour and to them lifting warm bread and rolls out of the oven.
Each child weighed and stirred, learned what happens when yeast and sugar are mixed and flour added. They really went to town with the kneading and made some great shapes or their initials out of the dough. There were lots of smiles when the baking was finished and they could finally taste the finished product, and there was still some to take home. Apart from the oven in the school kitchen, it was all done in a classroom.
The ice lolly could be another such experiment. Roll it out, I say.
Lesley Clark
Maltby, South Yorkshire
• Your article quotes the scientists’ recommendation that primary schoolchildren should have the opportunity to knead dough, dig in the soil and plant vegetables. The words grandmothers and eggs come to mind.
What does the Royal Society think primary school teachers have been doing for the last 50 years? We have all been digging, planting and baking with our young children, as well as fulfilling an extensive curriculum of other subjects. I suggest these “science grandees” visit a few more schools.
Glennis Thomas
Retired primary school headteacher, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire
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