Wednesday, March 6th.Bread Day

Welcome to bread day.  

I have long said that when life gets too stressful for me I like to bake bread because nothing seriously bad can happen to you in a house filled with that lovely scent.

Today I had so much fun introducing the kids to the joy of baking bread.

We started the day reading this very informative book

Then we mixed up bread dough to bake bread.  

We talked about yeast and how it will make our bread change.  I explained it in the most simple terms I could.  While the children kneaded their bread dough I explained their bread was going to change and then asked them how they thought it would change.

S:   "It's going to get really, really, really fat."

D:   "It's going to change to big big BIG!"

Look at that face.  It says it all.  He had so much fun.

C:   "It's going to go night-night."

So proud of his loaf of bread.

Baking bread is a lot of fun but the point was to help reinforce the letter Bb so I threw in some Bb mats to the mix, gave the kids extra bread dough I had sat aside, and this is what ensued.

They spent the rest of the morning, rolling, pinching, smelling, pulling and enjoying bread dough and our Bb mats.

Now, you can't have bread without butter, can you?   NO WAY!

So, what do you need to make butter?

Cream or half and half.

A jar.

Throw in a child or two,

then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn32TiqaHvY

Which we did, to this song, in the mist of giggles, laughter, and squeals of delight.  It is because of moments such as this one that I do what I do for a living.  Just can not put a price tag on that sort of joy.

We talked about how the cream would change as we shook it.  We talked about the different forms matter can take, solid, liquid, or gas.

They were curious to see the change take place, but soon tired of shaking so it was left to Ms. P to finish the job.

After all this bread and butter exploration it was time for lunch and nap.  As the children waited for me to finish lunch they enjoyed our newest toys.

I found these learning game systems with more than twenty games at an online garage sale, for a jewel of a price.  LOVE great deals.  LOVE garage selling.  The children LOVED the games.

It was hard to get them to set it aside for lunch and a nap, bad timing on my part, but with the promise of returning to the game fun, and dangling the first one awake gets to pick the game they want to play first, they reluctantly agreed and came to the table for lunch.  Lesson learned.  

Lunch was chicken patties, snow peas and potatoes, apple slices and cold milk.

The children woke from their naps not so eager to play the learning game systems as they were to see the changes that had taken place in their loaves of bread.

So, did they call the changes right?  Who's to say it didn't go night-night and wake up this fat.  Happens to me all the time.  LOL

Now it was time to bake our bread and see how adding heat to our dough will change it yet one more time.

S:  "I like the way my bread smells.  It smells so good."

C:  "I like my bread.  I made bread."

D:  "I want to eat my bread.  It smells yummy.  I like my bread."

After baking our bread we sliced a piece, added our homemade butter, added a bit of honey, poured a glass of milk and what a yummy afternoon snack.  

Then it was time to practice writing our names and work on our Bb writing.

It was a beautiful day so we went outside to soak up some sun.

See you tomorrow,

Ms. P