Kids Cook Lesson One: Herbs

Today was the first class in the Kids Cook series.  It was a rousing success with a dozen kids and parents participating!

Because I was leading the class, I did not take pictures.  Next class I will ask someone to take a few pictures for me.

Here’s a quick recap of the class:

We washed hands with soap.  Then everyone smelled, touched, and looked at the variety of herbs.  We came up with a definition for herb:

“green, leaves, smells, can eat it”

Then, we tasted the herbs. Everyone liked different flavors!

Kids tore up their favorite herb or combination and mixed it into Ohio made cream cheese.  They spread this on crackers for a tasty snack.

Next we made window herb gardens.  This is a fun activity for anyone to try at home.

• Use a hole punch to make two holes below the seal of a ziploc type plastic bag.  We used the snack size.
• Insert fishing line and tie to form a hanging loop.
• Place a folded paper towel in the bag.
• Use a spray bottle to wet the towel.
• Scatter a few seeds on the wet towel.
• Hang by a suction cup hook in a sunny (typically south facing) window.
• Keep the zipper top unzipped to allow for air flow.
• Re-wet the paper towel when most of the water evaporates.
• After the seeds sprout and grow their second pairs of leaves, the seedlings need nutrients.  You can either gently transfer to a pot of soil or feed with a liquid fertilizer.

herb window garden after three weeks

We finished by reading Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.

This series of classes will continue on Thursdays  from 11:15 – 12 at Sprout Soup through the month of October.  The next class is about apples. Please join us if you can!