Why Investigate Bread?
11/16/2018
Bread is everywhere! Nearly every culture in the world eats some type of bread. From a very young age children may be offered a variety of types of bread at meals: toast at breakfast, sandwiches at lunch, or tortillas at dinner. Few experiences are as universal as bread. A study of bread provides children with an opportunity to learn how bread is made, what kinds of bread we eat, who works with bread, and how and when we eat bread. During this study our students will work together to develop their own new bread recipe, They will use a variety of skills to predict, experiment, plan, write, draw, examine, and negotiate with others. A study of bread encourages children to explore a familiar topic and allows them to gather information, solve problems, imagine, and think symbolically. This study also offers meaningful ways children to use literacy, mathematics, the arts, and technology to investigate and represent their understanding of important concepts as we study. This week we began using some of these skills as we investigated how bread is made. We took time to inspect and explore different types of flour. We used magnifying glasses and our fingers to learn how all purpose flour, whole, wheat flour, cornmeal, flax seed meal, and masa flour were different from each other. We used our math and literacy skills to read and follow a recipe to make cornbread. After our trip to Papa Murphy's pizza we used our critical thinking skills to compare and contrast making bread dough with making pizza dough. Our trip to Papa Murphy's Pizza got us excited about bread! It was a wonderful experience to be in a real store that made pizza. The students were thrilled to help measure and weigh ingredients, and then to watch the giant mixer create a huge 62 lb ball of pizza dough. We got to use our muscles to help shred an large block of cheese. And best of all everyone got to make their own pizza! I think pizza might be our favorite type of bread. Exploring Bread
11/10/2018
This week we began exploring our new study topic: Bread. We had group discussions and shared writings about what we already know about bread. We sorted different toy breads into different categories to get us thinking about bread: flat bread and rounded, circle shaped bread and not circle shaped bread. The explorers cut out food pictures and glued them onto a graph of bread and not bread. This activity brought up questions about what makes a food bread. Some thought a taco was bread because on "the outside of the meat there is bread," others thought tacos were not bread because they had lettuce and tomatoes in them. Spaghetti was also a gray zone, some sorted it into the bread category because noodles are "the same color as bread and soft and chewy." This led us into a discussion of what we wanted to learn about bread during our study. The explorers also became excited about having a pretend bakery in out classroom. We worked together to transform our tree center into a bakery. We made bakery signs and collected items from the kitchen to mix pretend breads and cakes. On Thursday we made salt dough and sculpted models of different breads we wanted to have in our bakery center. The students made bagels, pretzels, long breads, gingerbread men, round breads, and flat breads. On Friday we read "The Little Red Hen" and then went through some of the same steps to make our own loaf of bread. The explores enjoyed being bakers and learning how to knead the soft dough. (Unfortunately we had oven difficulties and the bread was not fully baked by the time school was over. We will get to try the bread on Monday. ) More highlights from the week: art projects, tall buildings, and a Spanish fiesta.
|
Anna RamseyArchives
April 2021
Categories |