I have been asked to help with an afterschool program for kids. They are wanting me to teach a cake decorating class once a week. I will have appx. 1.5 hours with the kids. I am at a loss for how to organize this. I would appreciate any suggestions. I had thought about working on a specific cupcake each week, but not sure that it would take long enough. I've been decorating for years, but never taught anyone, yet alone 12 kids.
I homeschool our kids and we attend a very large homeschool co-op. I was considering offering cake decorating as a class next year for the high school kids. Im in the same boat, no idea how to organize it.
The church we go to offers a summer arts program instead of vacation bible school. Kids can pick a fun art class to attend for an hour then they do the church stuff for an hour after that. One of the classes they offer is cake decorating. They spend the summer decorating a fake cake with plaster. A little here and there every week and by the end of the summer the whole cake is completely decorated and theyve learned all the basic skills you would in Wilton course 1. Then at the end of the summer the church has an art show for all the classes to display their work and they put the cakes out for everyone to see. They also do cupcakes and cookies along the way so the kids get to learn to ice those and they have something they can take home and share with their family. I was considering doing something like that.
Ive been searching online for cake decorating curriculum for kids and there are a lot of resources out there. Wilton even has one all laid out for you with times and everything
http://www.wilton.com/classes/icing-fun/materialsandtips.cfm
That's a great age for your class... I'm sure a lot of us started decorating around 12 years old.
The Wilton link that LNW provided appears to be an appropriate plan for your group (at least for your first lesson), and all of the steps for organizing this is well documented for ease of preplanning on your part. (I'm impressed--never thought I'd recommend a Wilton-method anything, but this looks like a great start for kids.)
Their plan states it's for ages 9 and up for a two-hour session, so hopefully your 12-year-olds can master the first lesson within the 1.5 hour timeframe. See how it goes, and if they're all catching on and ready to move on to more complicated techniques for the second class just think back to when you first started decorating and show them what you know. As they progress, they'll get bored with cupcakes quickly... you'll know when it's time to start the "ice your own cake" lesson after you see how talented they are and how quickly they learn. Good luck and have fun!
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