Chocolate Homeschool Unit II, and Chocolate Tasting Activity

Our last unit of the year was on Chocolate. Daisy remembers the last time we did this unit (you can find lots of resources linked there) and has been begging to do another one ever since! Since she is planning to go into "the industry" (hee hee), she feels she needs to know these things—and she's probably right! So we did a very in-depth dive into the history, creation, and science of chocolate!

Chocolate Unit Pinterest Board (from last time)

We found another way to tie Macaws into our year. Can you blame us? Gus just loves them so much! Anyway, they live in the rainforest, and chocolate grows in the rainforest, so…it makes perfect sense. Here are some videos we liked about macaws:

How a baby macaw grows up

Wild macaws in the Amazon rainforest

A history of chocolate documentary

Lesson plan about the Aztec and Maya using chocolate—we used the Aztec chocolate recipe in this lesson

We looked at this Aztec-style recipe too

The Lindt company invented conching, which is the process that makes chocolate today so smooth and creamy. Here's some information about it.

Making "artisan" or "bean to bar" chocolate is trendy right now. That means a lot of fancy $10 chocolate bars at the grocery store, but it also means there is TON of information about chocolate-making online. Lots of great videos and resources. One of the most comprehensive sites is this "Chocolate Alchemy" site, which has how-to videos of every step.

Most of the small-batch chocolate makers I found online (including my friend Tye, whose house we visited for a field trip) use a melanger to make their chocolate smooth and creamy. The big companies still use what they call conching, but it seemed to me the process of melanging and conching were the same thing. Here is a site I found that explains the nuanced difference between the two, for anyone that cares (likely NO ONE).

We really liked all these "Kitchen Matters" videos about chocolate chemistry. The explanations of tempering were some of the clearest we found anywhere, and it was interesting to learn about the chemical processes connected with that. Here is crystal structures of chocolate (basically all commercial chocolate today has cocoa butter in the Phase V stage, and it's the most pleasing and best phrase for eating). Here is the science of tempering chocolate. And here is how to fix seized chocolate.

Difference between theobromine and caffeine (and why chocolate doesn't have "just as much caffeine as coffee" as people sometimes claim)

Different chocolate regulations in different countries (explains why European and even Canadian chocolate is so good)

Funny Rittersport ad campaign

And another one

Learning about emulsifiers was really interesting! (More about emulsifiers)

Some "how chocolate is made" videos—

White chocolate

Every step of of making chocolate

Making cocoa butter

This guy made chocolate from scratch

How it's made: chocolate

A guide to tempering chocolate

I bought a bunch of chocolate bars (some of the aforementioned fancy $10 variety, so this got expensive quickly and I had to put some back! goodness!) for us to taste and try. The stars aligned that everyone, even Abe and Seb, were home that day, so everyone got to participate in the activity and it was so much fun! We wrote our observations down and tried to be scientific about it, but mostly it was just so fun to try so many different iterations of the same thing! And all the different percentages and types of beans and origins really do make such a difference!

Here is the last time our family did a chocolate tasting: https://nielsonschool.blogspot.com/2014/05/chocolate-tasting-activity.html

And here are some of our notes, for posterity (in case we ever need to remember which chocolate to buy…but you can never go wrong with just RitterSport) :)

Fire Station Field Trip

(Cross-posted from the family blog)

As I think I mentioned, we've been having an Emergency Services unit for school, and after we toured the Police Station we thought we should tour the Fire Station too! I haven't been to a fire station tour since I had Cub Scouts. The tour was SO good! The firefighters seemed happy to have something to do and people to talk to. Even the chief came out and talked to us for a while. There was one man who was officially giving the tour, but the other three men on duty all gathered around and walked with us too, interjecting helpful comments. Eventually it turned into each child basically having his or her own personal guide and escort who could answer every little question. So great!

We went to the fire station close to us, a relatively new one. It was fun to imagine what it would be like to live there for several days a week with your team, cooking meals and learning new skills and watching movies together at night. Almost like Scout Camp or something, but better. :) We got to see the sleeping rooms and gym and kitchen and everything, as well as the fire engines, of course!

The little boys were very impressed with the "Jaws of Life", especially after the firefighters crushed a can with them

Trying on headsets in the fire engine

The girls were flattered too because the firemen were so nice to them, saying what good questions they asked, and praising their ballet/running fitness skills, and trying to convince them to join a fire crew in a few years. They told the girls, "Some of our best firefighters are women!" They were very persuasive. The job sounded pretty fun when they described it!

And Ziggy, of course, was just totally thrilled by the whole thing.

For days and days afterwards, all the little boys wanted to play was Fireman. They made fire trucks out of blocks and loaded them up with all kinds of equipment (and then had me come listen to their "tours").

Ziggy chopped his way into our house with his axe and sprayed everything with his hose (just for pretend, thank goodness, but only because the hose isn't hooked up to the water right now).

And he hung his firefighter gear in readiness next to his bike, with everything laid out for optimally quick entry (even his boots tucked into his pants just like the firemen had theirs!).

Here are the two little boys up on the hill, having raced there in great excitement when they heard sirens. "Maybe it's our firemen!" I confess we now check every ambulance and fire truck we see, hoping it's "our" firemen. They were so nice! It makes it fun to drive by the fire station now when we're out and about, just knowing what's inside and feeling almost like we have friends there.

Police Station Field Trip

(Cross-posted from family blog)

We had such a great police station tour to go with our Emergency Workers Unit. I was so glad the policeman was kind and sweet to little hero-worshiping Ziggy. I looked up mid-tour and Ziggy had just trustingly taken Officer Hansen's hand! 

This is Ziggy's face after the policeman told him to push a button on the console, and he realized he had turned on the flashing lights!

Oh it was a happy day for him. And interesting for the rest of us, too! We took the policemen some cookies the next day as a thank-you.

Milk Carton Ambulance

We found the idea to make a milk carton ambulance from this blog, and wanted to try it ourselves. It was fun! And it turned out cute. It didn't last super long, but nothing seems to at our house…*sigh.* Still, a fun project.

We made lots of fun little details. I like the front seat and steering wheel.

And the stretcher and first aid supply cabinets in the back!

Junie made THE CUTEST tiny first aid supplies to go inside. A little stethoscope, wrap bandage, hypodermic needle, and a teeeeeeny-tiny box of bandaids!

Emergency Workers Unit Study and Activities

I thought we'd do a little unit on Policemen and Firemen for Ziggy's sake (he LOVES to pretend to be a policeman and fireman), and then it turned out there was a lot to learn about emergency workers and it wasn't such a little unit! We all enjoyed it. We had a section on Police, a section on Firefighters, and a section on EMTs and Paramedics.

Lots of video links for this unit, which will probably all be obsolete in a year or two, but oh well…

POLICE

Make a police badge

Make a traffic light (the boys liked this, for their toy cars)

Police Car Tour—pretty cool, but seeing the inside of a real police car on a field trip was even more cool!

We talked about all different kinds of police officers, so that included detectives and forensic officers too. Learning about fingerprinting, DNA, and Crime Scene Investigation was really interesting! Here's some information about fingerprints. And some ways to do your own. (Pictures of our attempts below.)

This identifying suspects activity was fun

Comfort dogs!

By far our favorite part of the police section was learning about K-9 units and how they train police dogs. This "K-9 Mounties" show about police dogs in Canada was the best and most in-depth. We watched 5 of 6 episodes (we knew we couldn't watch the one about dogs killed in the line of duty because it would make Ziggy too sad! He loves police dogs so much and wouldn't have been able to handle seeing them hurt.) Here's the first episode and you should be able to find the others from there. (The title of the show is just "K-9 Mounties.") We all love German Shepherds after watching these shows!

Here are some other police dog videos, here and here

These "Meet the Helpers" videos were annoying in some ways, but we still liked them (though the bigger kids enjoyed making fun of them a bit). Meet a police officer.

FIRE

Fire Truck tour (again, the real thing was better, but this is fun)

A day in the life of a firefighter documentary. The kids loved this one.

Police and Fire open house in some city

Fire Dept Open House (same event)

Same series as above—Meet a firefighter.

EMT

Meet a 911 Operator

This is a little paper model for an ambulance, police car, or fire truck you can build

Ambulance word search

Ambulance spot-the-difference

Ambulance Tour

Another Ambulance tour—this one was soooo funny. (In a bad way.) It was so bad it was good. Why did they make a talking ambulance? Why??

Handyman Hal was pretty funny too

(Here are the children improvising a stretcher to carry wounded Ziggy in)

Working on a detective/fingerprinting activity

Pirate Celebration

Our Pirate Celebration was one of our best of the year. Something about Pirates just lends itself well to a good party! The best part was that I split the children up into teams and had them plan and execute everything. Goldie and Teddy did decorations and invitations, Daisy and Teddy planned and led a treasure hunt activity, and Junie was in charge of a Pirate craft activity. I took charge of food.

Daisy found the idea for this amazing treasure chest online. It was made from papier-mâché in the original, but she and Teddy just made theirs out of cardboard. They spent multiple days painting it, "aging" it, and adding all the textural details. It turned out so well!

Junie planned out a design for a Pirate Ship and then made the base form for it. During the party, everyone helped add the railings, mast, and flag to decorate the ship.

So much fun! Gus and Clem took a ride in the vessel when it was finished.

We were all happy because Malachi thought he was going to have to work, but then got to come home early and join our celebration. (He doesn't LOOK particularly happy in this picture, but I'm sure he is!)

Goldie's table decorations were wonderful. She made palm trees and little island, set out candles and skull candlablras, strewed out a few bottles with messages inside them, and filled chests with gold and jewels. Oh, and she used our model ship too.

She also found a bunch of old plastic bottles we'd used for a sand bottle craft at our family reunion a few years ago, and decided they would make good rum bottles. We made homemade root beer, and she labeled it with her own labels she designed on the computer. They were so cute! "Caution: extremely fizzy. Caution: dark color." There was a "contains no alcohol" on there too, just to make sure. :)

Teddy and Goldie have their serious pirate faces on.

Ooh, I think that's a countdown-to-Abe-coming-home chain up on the window.

For dinner, I made salmagundi, which is basically just a big composed salad platter of things pirates might only get on special occasions. I read that "the name is supposed to come from the French salemine (meaning highly seasoned), but it’s believed the word salmagonde was coined by the French writer Rabelais in the 16th century from 'salmagondis', which means a mix of widely disparate things. These two definitions sum up the pirate dish." I just kind of threw together things that seemed like they'd taste good and everyone would like, but I drew inspiration from pictures and recipes here and here. The dressing in that second link was really good. I made our salmagundi with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, salami, shrimp, salmon, and hard-boiled eggs. The dressing (sort of a hollandaise sauce) was good on all of it!

Junie also made the little jello "jewels", and Daisy helped with the orange wedge "pirate ships." Everyone helped decorate a cookie pizza as a "treasure map."

We loved the treasure hunt Daisy and Teddy planned. They'd made the clues on carefully singed scraps of paper and we had to piece them together to form a map once we'd found all the clues.

 The treasure at the end was, naturally, their wonderful treasure box, filled with a mixture of chocolate coins and pretend gold coins. Spilling out of the chest bountifully, of course!

I love 

We watched "The Pirates of Penzance" to end the night. We love that movie so much. And I love my little band of pirates!