December 11th, 2009

Today was a great and busy day!

At our morning meeting, we were Problem Solvers. Our problem was that during centers, we found ourselves constantly in conflict over sharing the computers. We were not sure how much time was fair for people to spend on them. To solve the problem, we took turns suggesting how much time each person should get on the computer. Some Problem Solvers said 10 minutes, some said 5, some said 4, some said 3, some said 1. Most people voted for 10 minute sessions on the computer. We will try 10 minutes and revisit our solution in a few weeks to think about whether it is still fair and is working for us.





For baking today, we made tortillas! We read a recipe, and took turns adding in the ingredients. This is always a test of patience, and we do so wonderfully respecting the materials and giving everyone a chance to participate. While mixing, we noticed that, unlike other bread recipes, tortillas don't have yeast in them. We predicted that the tortilla dough wouldn't rise without the yeast.

As always, we tasted and smelled our ingredients. We wanted to taste the Crisco shortening because we thought it looked like butter, and some of liked it and some of us gagged. We discussed how the shortening makes the dough stick together and not burn in the pan.

After mixing the batter, we divided the tortillas into little balls - one for each of us. We each got a turn using the tortilla press to flatten our balls of dough into the shape of skinny circles. We thought they looked like pancakes!






During afternoon centers, we cooked our tortillas in on a griddle Sam's daddy Mr. Chris brought us. We knew they were done when they were slightly brown. We topped them with cheese. They were so delicious. We were right about the yeast! Since we didn't put yeast in the dough, it did not rise!!



We talked about how people from different places around the world eat different types of bread. Some eat tortillas, and some people eat yeast bread like we made Wednesday. One of the reasons people from different countries eat different types of bread is that they have different ingredients to use. If people don't have yeast, they would be able to make a flat bread like tortillas!

We added cheese to our tortillas!

Next week we will continue our bread unit. We will make soda biscuits, monkey bread, and gingerbread!