December 14th, 2009

Blog Manager:
"We made biscuits. We used these things to make those shapes and we cooked them in the oven. Some kids did it. Not everybody. But we all got to eat them. The biscuits rose in the oven from the baking soda. We didn't use yeast. No. With our buddies we made play dough. Mine is pink with some glitter. My big buddy squished it right up. I am the substitute. I'll also have to carry the board out because Nate is not here." -Jacob

We took a vote today. As we are all teachers and learners in our community, we talked about whether or not we wanted to continue to study bread after the break. Most of us are "breaded-out." We discussed different topics we would like to study instead. Most of us wanted to study snow and snowflakes. We will try to integrate this into what we study in the future.


Today we made Everett's family's recipe for Soda Biscuits. Instead of baking as a whole group activity as we have done in the past, this week we can choose to bake as a part of center time.

We measured all the ingredients. By now we know how to identify one cup, one tablespoon, and one teaspoon. We also know immediately how to make sure our measurements are just right - by filling up our measuring cups to the brim, then scraping off the excess with our fingers.





We all had different suggestions on how to get the lard from the measuring spoon into the bowl. Patrick tried scraping off the lard in little bits into the bowl.


Gage wanted to try hitting the measuring spoon against the bowl. When that didn't work, he changed his method and scraped the top of the lard into the bowl using the bowl's rim. He then used another spoon to scrape the remaining lard into the bowl. We talked about how when you have a problem with a solution that is not working, it is good to stop and think of other solutions to try that might work better, instead of trying a solution that won't work over and over.


We noticed as we baked that the biscuits did not have yeast in them. But Everett knew that Soda Biscuits actually do rise. We wondered how that was possible without the yeast.

This was the first bread that we had to roll out with a rolling pin. We took turns flattening the dough.



Everett brought in three different cookie cutters - a circle, star, and heart. We took turns cutting out the dough and putting it on the baking sheet.




After the biscuits were out of the oven, we noticed that they had risen! How did that happen without yeast? Some of us thought it was just the oven that made the biscuits rise. Ms. Katie shared that other ingredients (baking soda) could also make breads rise.

Everett brought in honey and butter to enjoy with our biscuits.

The biscuits were so good.

We gave the biscuits a double thumbs up!

We also made play dough with our big buddies today! We showed our buddies how we could read recipes and accurately measure ingredients. It was great to show off our understanding of literacy, math, science and the process of making dough to our buddies.



Some of us had play dough that was too dry. It took some problem solving to fix it. We added more water or oil to make it closer to the consistency of play dough.


Some of us had play dough that was too wet. We had to add more flour or salt to make the play dough more solid.


On Wednesday we will be making monkey bread!