‘Kindergarten farmers’: pre-school course exposes Chinese kids to natural ‘paradise’ while teaching them how to make tofu from scratch

A kindergarten in Guizhou province receives online praise with ‘field practice’ farming course for 6-year-olds

Practical classes are appearing across China under a national life skills curriculum that came into effect this year

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A school in China teaches 6-year-olds to make tofu from scratch with a farming course, part of a national curriculum on practical skills that started this year. Photo: SCMP composite/handout

Liya Suin Shanghai

Published: 6:00pm, 19 Dec 2022

A kindergarten in southwestern China has launched a course on farming with classes which include making tofu from scratch as part of a central government plan to boost the life skills and independence of China’s children.

Launched earlier this year at an unnamed kindergarten in Bijie city in Guizhou province, the new course has attracted substantial interest after starting its “field practice” curriculum, which includes a lesson teaching the process of making tofu, Bailu Video reported.

A teacher at the school, surnamed Huang, said the new curriculum is designed to provide a space for students to gain practical knowledge about nature and develop life skills.

The children learn about tofu making from field to plate and, says Huang, ‘It’s a way of passing on cultural heritage and developing life skills’. Photo: Weibo.

“Our kindergarten’s farm course and making tofu initiative aims to teach our children how to connect with real life. It is a creative idea that offers a paradise where children can explore nature,” Huang told Bailu Video.

A video of the tofu-making class posted on Weibo shows children cooking soybeans and other ingredients in a large pot simmering over an outdoor fire before moving the beans into a bag to squeeze out soy milk.

Huang said that the children had learned the process step by step, from cleaning the soybeans to the coagulation of the bean curd.

“It’s a way of passing on cultural heritage and developing life skills,” she said.