Bread Unit field trips

We didn't really find a satisfactory field trip to go on for this unit. There's a really cute little bakery in our neighborhood, and I really like the ladies that own it, but they don't have a bread oven so I tried to find somewhere else. (Someday we'll ask if we can visit their bakery, though.)

I emailed Great Harvest Bread, and they said they'd do a field trip for us, but then never got back to me to confirm our time, even after multiple calls/emails. Lame.

So, I asked Harmon's if we could come---they have a bakery in the store near us, and they make great bread. They said they could do a tour focusing on just the bakery. But then they didn't even let us behind the counter! The customer service guy was pointing vaguely back into the back ("You can see the mixer back there!") and the children were jumping up and down trying to make themselves tall enough to see. Malachi and Daisy couldn't even SEE over the counter. The baker in charge did come to talk to us briefly, but she clearly didn't think the children knew anything ("Did you know bread has something called yeast in it?") so it wasn't very interesting. We DID really like seeing the steam-injection ovens---from afar---and one of the other bakers showed us how the racks slide up and down and what buttons you push to inject the steam. So that was pretty cool.

Then there's another Harmon's in Draper with a bigger bakery and a cafe and pizza bakery in it, so I called there and asked if they did tours---hoping they'd be more equipped to let us back into the actual bakery part. But when we got there, due to a mixup in who I thought I was talking to on the phone, they sent us to the other Draper store---which is exactly like our own store. There, the customer service manager walked us around the whole store telling us how much better their food is than every other store's and advertising their products. So THAT was also really lame. I feel sort of bad criticizing him because he was really nice to us, and he gave the children little tastes of things along the way and they had a fun time, but honestly, as a field trip, it was a waste of time. He mostly was talking to ME (advertising) and when the children asked him good questions he didn't even usually have answers to them. Plus it wasn't focusing on the bakery which is what I'd asked for in the first place. So . . . it's not something I'd do again, for sure (unless we were doing a unit on Marketing Through Schoolchildren).

Oh, and they did get balloons. :)