Baking Pumpkin Bread Becomes an Interdisciplinary Lesson for Students

Prior to going into teaching, Frank G. Lindsey Elementary School teacher Amy Ceconi-Cavalieri received a degree in Restaurant Management. She enjoys sharing her passion for baking with students.

“I love to incorporate baking into my lessons, as it touches on so many subjects,” she said. “Students love the hands-on experience that cooking and baking provides. For some students, this is their first time cracking an egg, or even baking!”

Mrs. Ceconi-Cavalieri’s class made pumpkin bread batter the Thursday and Friday before Thanksgiving. Students were divided into three small groups and took turns measuring, cracking eggs into the batter, whisking the eggs, holding the bowl for their classmate, combining the ingredients, and stirring the mixture. That included insight into what it meant to “level off” when baking. The students worked together, with one student measuring a dry ingredient while the other student would “level it off.”

On Monday, each student brought home an individual-sized loaf of pumpkin bread (with the recipe attached) to share with their family.

“Baking is so much more than what many people think,” Mrs. Ceconi-Cavalieri said. “During our activity, students were introduced to the tools (science) that we would use (teaspoon, tablespoon, measuring scoops, measuring cup, spatula, handheld can opener, etc.). We discussed where the term ‘teaspoon’ and ‘tablespoon’ came from (history), how to measure dry vs. liquid ingredients, and how on the measuring cup it shows liquid ounces/cups and milliliters.

“We also noticed how the term ‘combine’ is used in cooking and in math when we need to put things together (vocabulary),” she added. “Although in this recipe, the ingredients were all combined, we did talk about how recipes are often written in order (directions), and how you need to follow those directions in order.”

While making the batter, students received a quick introduction to fractions when they used a one-half cup scoop to measure three cups of sugar.  Students used the tape diagram strategy to solve for the total number of half-cup scoops they would need to use. Since one cup equals two half-cup scoops, a total of six half-cup scoops are required for the recipe.

Students smelled two different spices, cinnamon and nutmeg, and learned which country and continent (Social Studies) the spices originated from, as well as what it looked like before it was ground. They found the country (Indonesia) on the map and marked the location. Mrs. Ceconi-Cavalieri also mentioned how baking soda is used in many cake and bread recipes.  Baking soda acts as a chemical leavener. Baking soda reacts with an acid (pumpkin) to produce carbon dioxide, which produces bubbles/air that makes the bubbles in the pumpkin bread batter expand and rise.

One of Mrs. Ceconi-Cavalieri’s former third grade students, Harleigh Corcoran, assisted the class last week with the baking. She is currently a senior at Hendrick Hudson High School who is also interning through the Early Childhood Education program at the PNW BOCES Tech Center in Yorktown Heights.

The pumpkin bread recipe came from another former third grade student, Grace Campanelli. Her younger sister, Olivia, is in the class this year. The recipe is originally from their father’s third grade teacher when he attended Buchanan-Verplanck Elementary School.