Materials:

• ingredients to make muffins
• drawing paper
• baking utensils
• markers and crayons
• camera and film (optional)

Objective: Children will participate in muffin-making activities that help develop science, math, and cooperative learning skills.

In Advance: Send a note home telling parents that children will be baking different kinds muffins for the next few weeks. Ask families to send in favorite muffin recipes.

ACTIVITIES

The Muffin Man

Begin by teaching children this classic rhyme:

Do you know the muffin man?
The muffin man, the muffin man.
Do you know the muffin man
He lives on Drury Lane.
Yes, I know the muffin man,
The muffin man, the muffin man.
Yes, I know the muffin man.
He lives on Drury Lane.

Then ask, while clapping out the beat:

What are your favorite muffins?
Is it: Blueberry, Banana,
Huckleberry, Strawberry Apple,
Bran, Carrot, Lemon, Corn?
(you can add other favorites)

Multi-Muffin Snack

Tell children that each week they will bake a different type of muffin to have for snack. Collect the recipes and assist children in choosing the muffins they would like to make. Gather the ingredients and baking utensils. Prepare an illustrated recipe chart for each muffin recipe. Engage children in reading the recipe chart as you go along. You may want to photograph children during the baking process and while they are eating their muffins to document the activity. You can double the batch and send an extra muffin home so children can share their muffins with their families.

Paper Muffins

Cut out muffin shapes from drawing paper. Provide the children with markers or crayons and ask them to make special paper muffins. Some children may want to describe the type of muffin they made. Record their comments below their paper muffin.

Curriculum Connection

Literacy: Muffin Recipe Book.
Make a muffin recipe book for each family to document the muffin project. Make photocopies of all the muffin recipes, the children's paper muffins, and photographs documenting the activity. You may also want to ask children what muffins they liked best and other questions related to the activity, including their responses in the book.

BOOKS
If You Give a Moose A Muffin by Laura Joffee Numeroff
(HarperCollins Juvenile, Inc., 1991; $15.95)
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
(HarperTrophy, 1995; $6.95)
In the Kitchen by Susan Canizares and Betsey Chessen
(Scholastic Inc.; $3.25)