K2.1s are learning about the roles and responsibilities that make us a contributing member, in our families and communities. This is in relation to their current unit of inquiry on families.
To introduce how individual roles and responsibilities can benefit or hurt the group as a whole, I read the The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone. The basic premise of the story is that Little Red Hen's friends do not want to help her grow, harvest or mill the wheat into flour, but they all want to have a cake from the flour.
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| Image taken from Amazon.com |
To make an authentic connection to the Little Red Hen themes, K2s had to understand how this selfish attitude hurts a group. We wanted them to practice the Learner Profile Attitude of cooperation, and how roles and responsibility are integral to successful collaboration.
Continuing on the theme of baking, we embarked on making bread dough. Each student was given a task involved in the process. Students knew they were accountable. If anyone was not responsible for their role, we would know when we ate the bread.
Continuing on the theme of baking, we embarked on making bread dough. Each student was given a task involved in the process. Students knew they were accountable. If anyone was not responsible for their role, we would know when we ate the bread.
After reading the Little Red Hen, I showed them the video on how to make no-knead bread from Carnal Dish. I particularly like this video as it claims to be "so easy a five year old could do it". Strong words of encouragement that did not go ignored among my K2.1 clientele of budding bakers. They were most eager and vociferous in their enthusiasm to start. The recipe we used can be found here.
Video taken from carnaldish.com
Before starting, I laid out all the equipment and ingredients needed and we reviewed what role each of these played:
- yeast
- flour
- water
- salt
- whisk
- dough scraper
I suggested adding in seeds, and we took a vote. Much to my dismay, a majority of the students rejected the seeds. Democracy prevails in K2.1 so our bread was left seedless.
Steps to make the dough were distributed among every students in K2.1. Everyone was going to contribute to the bread. We recorded the task that each student undertook and photographed them doing it. A time lapse of the first rising of the dough also shows students how the yeast causes the dough to rise over about 3 hours.
We let the dough rise for 24 hours, then did the second proofing before baking it in an over for 45 minutes (30 minutes with a lid on the casserole dish, then the final 15 minutes without for a nice golden, crunchy crust).
On the second day while the students waited for the bread to be cooled. During this time, they reviewed the bread making process with a Telmo and Tula animated video.
Video taken from youtube.com
The final product about to be served to eager little bakers.
For a video summary of this lesson, see below. Special thanks to Mrs. Dore for generously letting us use the oven in her classroom during Secondary class time.
We recorded and photographed every student and their role in the dough making process. Since all students were responsible in their roles, the bread turned out delicious, and even better with some honey or jam. It was a successful, and yummy, group effort.
Bread that was made and quality checked by K2.1
For a video summary of this lesson, see below. Special thanks to Mrs. Dore for generously letting us use the oven in her classroom during Secondary class time.
