"Daddy, today we made Challah!" Nathan exclaimed when I picked him up from preschool. Their class at the Jewish preschool was focusing on Shabbat (the sabbath) for the week, and the kids actually got to make Challah, the special braided Shabbat bread. Picturing a roomful of 12 squirrelly 4-year-old bakers, I had to smile. 

He continued. "I have a good idea. Maybe we can make Challah at home!"

"I don't know how," I said. 

"First, we have to have ingredients," he said.

"That sounds right to me," I said, still dubious. 

"Yup. You make it with ingredients." Then he fell silent, and I assumed the case was closed. An open-and-shut deal. But after a minute, he piped up from the back seat and surprised me.

"First we take sugar and hot water," he said. "You can't eat the sugar. If you eat it, then you can't make Challah."

"Okay," I went along with it for the sake of argument.

"Then you need eggs and flour and salt, and oil. You mix it together until it gets real hard." Unbidden, into my mind popped a picture of something like a hard-dried lump of pale play-dough.

"Then you pound it and pound it and pound it." Tables of squirrelly preschoolers pounding their lumps of dough.

"Then you braid it. You have to put it over and through, over and through, over and through." I was following him.

"Then you have to leave it to rise until tomorrow."

I was quite impressed at the effectiveness of the preschool's teaching! If we'd followed his recipe, the lack of yeast would have sabotaged us, but otherwise it seemed like my 4-year-old had actually learned how to make bread. Our whole family enjoyed the loaf he brought home the next day, and I was even more impressed. It was excellent. Now if only he could internalize and follow directions for using the bathroom that well . . .