During the school year, breakfast time is much shorter at our house. Except on Saturdays! The song, Pancakes On A Saturday, recorded by Andrea and David Spalding and their folksong family BrandyWine, soon became a favorite. But pancakes are good for more than just eating. Pour them into letter shapes, cook them and use them to practice the alphabet. Or form them into circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. Promote lots of vocabulary: crispy, soft, light, fluffy, golden, crusty, lacy, tasty, underdone, overdone, and even burnt. Talk about how to make them. Older kids may want to ‘help’ do a little research on different kinds of pancakes. For instance, some have eggs and some don’t. What is the ingredient buckwheat? Make a simple chart with 3 or 4 different kinds and ask others to choose a favorite. What kind is most popular? (My kids liked “the ones that Dad made.”) Tally up how many each person eats. Added all together, that makes … ! Compare sizes. Do we eat more small pancakes or more large ones? Letters, shapes, reading, writing, math, and more. Pancakes make for lots of learning. And that was only breakfast. Are pancakes the same around the world? What’s your favorite recipe or ingredient?
