Past projects 7
Classroom "Kneads" for Cooking Kids
Funded Sep 22, 2024I wanted to take a minute to thank you for supporting my culinary classroom through your generous Donors Choose contribution to my project. It was like an early Christmas gift to receive the much "kneaded" culinary art supplies at the start of the school year. My littles have been measuring up a storm with their color-coded collapsible measuring cups and spoons. Our middles have been using the Mad Mattr sensory dough to mimic real food and practice multiple times the basic knife skills to mince, dice and cut a perfect baton, without any real food waste. Once they mastered their knife skills they had the opportunity to translate those skills into making gorgeously cut garlicky roasted sweet potatoes harvested from our school garden, to eat and share with their teachers.
When we return from our winter break, we will be getting ourselves organized with the gifted divider tabs, and getting back to building up our knife skills. I am so thankful to have been blessed by your donation, as it elevates and enriches the learning experience in my classroom on a daily basis. I hope you enjoy some of the snap shots of the classroom, so you can see the impact your donation has made to my chef scholars.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
Project Tech in Our Outdoor Classroom
Funded Oct 18, 2023I am elated to be writing you about the wonderful impact our garden theatre has had on our school community. Our first event was in December, for our Garden movie under the stars. We had our students and their families join us for karaoke, cider, hot cocoa, cookies with flashlights and blankets for a family friendly festive film. It was a time for educators, and our school family to relax and just enjoy being together. My culinary arts chef scholars ran the totally FREE concessions stand, and are looking forward to a Spring event to decompress after statewide testing.
Thank you so much for seeing how projecting technology in our gorgeous green space, allows for students, teachers, parents, and guardians a chance to unwind and connect under the stars. It's opportunities like this that build school culture, and a sense of belonging. We are looking forward to all the possibilities, such as student film festival, and showing environmental films to increase awareness of sustainability and advocacy for our natural spaces. Donors allow educator's dreams to be manifested, and I am eternally grateful.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
This classroom project was brought to life by United Airlines and 6 other donors.Sharpening Our Knife Skills Safely
Funded Oct 13, 2022Oh my goodness, where do I begin when describing the impact of the Culinary Knife Practice Kits, has had on my elementary-8th grade chef scholars? From the moment they arrived and were unpacked, it was like Christmas morning. My chef scholars couldn't wait to open them up and set up to work on their knife skills.
I have been able to implement entry level culinary knife skills such as mincing, dicing, rough cuts, a batonnet, coin cut, and a julienne with my elementary and middle school students. The Mad Matter sculpting material, which is like a hybrid between kinetic sand and clay is the perfect material to mimic the feel of slicing through real food. Chef scholars mold carrots, potatoes, peppers, and celery to be sliced and diced under my direction. My little chefs use plastic training chef knives, while my middle schoolers can easily be transitioned from a training knife to a real steel knife! Not only that, in our practice knife kits are color-coded guides and rulers, so there's no guesswork to exact work. It's amazing to see them measure and attempt to make precise cuts just like in a professional kitchen.
One of the best benefits for me as an instructor, is there is absolutely ZERO food waste! My scholar can practice their knife cuts over and over again and ball up their work and store it away. This gives them multiple opportunities to perfect their skills before we use real food products. Chef scholars actually ask for practice time during their lunchtime to work on their knife skills. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your contribution to my Donors Choose Project. It has been a lifesaver in these tough economic times, and provides tangible gains when empowering children with the skill set to properly feed themselves and their families for a lifetime.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 8 other donors.Serving Up Diverse Books for Aspiring Chefs
Funded Jun 16, 2022When you think of books in a classroom, many don't think of that pertaining to a culinary arts program for elementary-middle school. As a culinary arts educator for over 24 years, I have always struggled to find diverse food story books or chapter books representing various cultures for school age children. But but when I do find them, I make a wish list in hopes of gathering enough resources to procure them for our classroom.
Through the funding of my project--Serving up diversity, we now have a myriad of culinary inspired books reflecting my chef scholars who sit in our culinary classroom from that very wish list. My chef scholars are so excited to read as a class or to individually scour the shelf to find a book that represents their food culture and experiences. I can't believe that even the middle school students want to reach for a story book, because they see an African-American Potato Farmer of the cover, or a Hispanic girl operating her family's food truck. It's so fulfilling to see them light up with curiosity.
This Donors Choose full funded project made a real difference in what can feel like indifferent times. I am forever grateful for this crowdfunding platform that supports teachers and classrooms.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
Safe Cook-Along Tools to Sharpen Chef Skills at Home
Funded Aug 13, 2020I can't begin to describe the feeling of relief to be able to hand out flexible cutting mats and plastic chef knives to all of my budding chefs. To know I would be able to continue imparting cooking skills to my chef scholars with peace of mind as an educator has been a true blessing. Ever since the pandemic washed over the world like a tidal wave, educators have been scrambling to reach our students in meaningful and unconventional ways.
For me, it was of the utmost importance to take the important life skill of growing, preparing, and cooking food to make simple and nutritious meals at school and at home. Through your donation, our cook-along classes are met without the fear of knife cuts or the inability to use a chef knife. Students are chopping, dicing, slicing with ease, and gaining much needed kitchen confidence. My face-to-face learners and virtual learners are having the time of their lives harvesting bok choy, carrots, cabbages, and onions from our school garden or their grow-at-home garden kits and using their knife skills to make a sensational stir fry utilizing their safe cooking tools.
We will continue to hone our chef skills with our new tools throughout the school year with our virtual Cook-Alongs with Ms. Karavias, and inviting family members to participate for our ever popular "Cook with Your Kid(s) Nights." I know my scholars are excited about showing off their work with their parents and loved ones. We are forever grateful to you for closing in the educational gap with your contribution, allowing us to engage in meaningful experiential learning safely.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 19 other donors.SporkTV~Turning Culinary Kids into Filmmakers...Stay Tuned!
Funded Dec 29, 2015WOW! We did it, thanks to all your generous support! We finally have a professional camera in the hands of my foodie filmmakers, and they are salivating over their NIKON 7100 DSLR. Having a professional camera has really upped our game, and enthusiasm to share our food adventures from school. We are even hoping to get the First Lady to visit, as she is a BIG proponent for school gardens, and cooking/eating well. We have recently shot our first cooking segment with Chef Alakina, and we're looking at ways to improve and make our videos look brilliant. You can check us out on our YouTube channel--The Cultivated Classroom, for a personal thank you from filmmaker Chef Aracely, and see what we're up to on our website: www.thecultivatedclassroom.com. We love to keep you abreast of what's growing on with us.
We promise to do our best to provide quality, entertaining, kid-friendly films, to evoke change at school and in the home. Thank you so much for supporting us, it means, "the world is our oyster," and you provided us a with a tool to open it up, and we are forever grateful.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias
Ladling up Literature in the Cultivated Classroom!
Funded Oct 17, 2014Dear Donors,
I can't begin to describe the thrill it has been to receive every book listed for the "Ladling Up Literature in the Cultivated Classroom" wish list project for Donor's Choose. The selection of sweet and savory stories hand-selected and served up with the End In Mind (to increase my student's love for reading), has exceeded my expectations. The response has been fantastic, as students look forward to reading literature placed center plate in their area of interest.
My middle school chefs have been reading Chicken Boy by Frances O'Roark Dowell, a riveting story of an at-risk 7th grader with a crazy grandmother, a hard-working widowed single father, and three delinquent siblings who finds the real meaning of life through the raising of backyard chickens with the new kid in town. It struck so many chords of the real life challenges our students face on a daily basis, coupled with our new experience of raising schoolyard chickens. Students actually recognized the main character Tobin, had four of the same breeds of hens we have. They also pointed out that our best egg layers happen to be Louise, our Black Australorp, just like Tobin's. We also spent time to making inferences and observations of our chickens to record data on their behaviors. Students recorded they noticed the same behaviors of dust bathing to clean their feathers was mentioned in the book. The correlations and connections of our classroom experiences are seamlessly intertwined in our literature, and what teacher could ask for more? My favorite experience so far has been when students have asked to read our books to the chickens at the Chick-Inn, our chicken habitat.
As an at-risk school, the majority of our students come to us with below average reading scores. So placing literature into the hands of students hungry for something they can connect to is every teacher's dream. How did this fully funded Donor's Choose project boost learning in my classroom? My elementary students had a classroom war over what book they were going to read first--Hank Zipner's Holy Enchilada! by Henry Winkler, or A Recipe for Adventure...Naples by renown Chef Giada De Laurentis. They ask for the recipes printed in the books to try at home or in class. Students have come to me asking if they can check the books out over the holiday break or weekend.
Through your generous donation, you have sparked a love for literature, and for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you for pouring out your love for literature into my students through your Donor's Choose contribution, it means so much to see every kid devouring these delicious books.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Karavias