Whether you're indoors in a kitchen or in an outdoor classroom with a fire pit, you can make bread from scratch with kids of any age! Watch on for a flatbread recipe tutorial on making flatbreads and herby spreads inspired by the garden. While the dough is rising, head to the garden and gather herbs to make a delicious spread. Then try cooking your flatbreads in an outdoor setting over a campfire for added flare and flavor!

What You’ll Need to Make Flatbreads

Bowl and spoon
Warm water
Yeast
Maple syrup
Flour
Salt
Olive oil

Herb Spreads

We’re highlighting an easy, straight-from-the-garden spread or dip for bread and crackers. Simply harvest herbs (or pick some up at your local market), remove the stems, chop, and mix with olive oil and salt for desired taste and consistency. We like to use manual pull choppers: they’re easy to use outdoors, make quick work of processing a lot of herbs, and are safe for young kids to use.

Resources

This activity and recipe is based on Bread, Good Bread from Shelburne Farms’ Cultivating Joy & Wonder.
For related extension activities, try Wonderful Wheat, Plant Parts We Eat, or Eating the Rainbow, also from Cultivating Joy & Wonder.

Explore the Series

This video is one of a three-part series highlighting some of our favorite farm to early childhood classroom activities and how they can easily integrate into your program. Hosted by Shelburne Farms educators Jed Norris and Hannah Corbin, these how-to videos explore outdoor, place-based learning; cooking with kids; and extending children’s knowledge of plants, food, and food systems.

A special thank you to Vermont early educators Jackie Reno and Chong Ho Kim of The Janet S. Munt Family Room (Burlington, VT) and Laura Butler of Imagination Island (Milton, VT) for lending their perspectives and farm to early childhood wisdom.

This video series is a project of the Vermont Farm to Early Childhood Coalition, an Action Team of the Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network. The project was supported by the Association of State Public Health Nutritionists through the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

A child mixes dough in a large stainless steel bowl; Educator Jed Norris touches his earlobes, showing students how to test the dough for the right feel; a child pulls the cord on a manual food chopper.

The Association of State Public Health Nutritionists' Farm to ECE grantee programs are supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States (U.S.) Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as one of several projects funded by cooperative agreement number NU38OT000279 (total of $6,320,000). This resource was supported by ASPHN's Farm to ECE grantee program, which is funded by the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity (DNPAO)/ National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)/CDC/HHS. The contents of this resource are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by DNPAO/NCCDPHP/CDC/HHS, or the U.S. government.