Early Birds Istanbul Earth Oven No.5

The kindergarten year had begun and we started right at the beginning by building a new earth oven. But... wait a minute! We already have a fully functional, wonderful earth oven that was built with our children in the Fall of 2023. Do we really need a second oven? No, we have neither the space nor need for a second oven in our kindergarten. One oven is enough for our 46 children! The reason why we build a new oven every year is simple:

When dismantling the old oven, everyone - children and staff -  learn what the oven was made from and above all, how the dome (which is the heart of the oven) is built.

Dismantling the furnace dome:

A well-built oven dome is very robust and cannot be dismantled easily, especially with small children's shovels. The dismantling process must be carried out very carefully so that no child is injured by falling stones. That's why I use the word DISMANTLING instead of DESTROYING.

  • The children filled small buckets with water
  • One-by-one they climbed the child-friendly 4-legged ladders
  • Water was poured over the oven dome until the old clay-straw plaster softened
  • We scratched and scraped down the plaster until the stones appeared
  • The stones were carefully pushed into the interior of the oven
  • All the stones were put aside, to be used for the new dome
  • The foundation was cleaned and prepared for the construction of the new dome

Now the rebuilding of the furnace dome could begin:

I have already described the construction of an earth oven in this article!

This time, however, we received a special oven-building clay powder. Although it was very pleasant and smooth to work with, it turned out that this clay powder caused deep cracks during the drying process. Even the abundant straw mixed in could not prevent these cracks.We were lucky and the cracks weren't very deep. They could be repaired with a little clay and straw mixture.

The earth oven 2024 was ready after 4 days of intensive work with the children, employees ,and our kindergarten father Dorian Schillfarth. The first dishes had already been cooked! We are ready for a new Earth Oven Cookbook 2025!

By: Regina Kruse-Özçelik

Founder of Early Birds İstanbul