"The Past" is a very difficult concept for my little ones to grasp. They cannot even envision a world without cell phones or ipads much less one without cable tv and microwaves. Even though I often bring up the good ole days (when I was growing up we didn't have....) they just can't imagine it.
The day before our Thanksgiving break began I decided we would have our own little "feast". We put cream in a jar and passed it around our circle shaking it into butter. I have always wanted to do that with a class and was thrilled when we opened it and it had actually worked!
Then I read them this book:
This is a story about different generations of people and how they made whipped cream. 300 years ago with a whisk, then the beaters that you grind, then with an electric mixer. (Disclaimer: in googling the image for this book I discovered that there is actually a bit of controversy surrounding the depiction of happy slaves in the story. I did not even think twice about that when I shared it with my students, but I can see how that might be considered controversial).
So we made whipped cream the old-fashioned way. Everyone had a turn-one pair of girls was very clever and thought they would try turning the bowl as the other was whisking to make it firm up faster. In the end I took the bowl and just channeled all those Top Chef episodes I have streamed to whisk it up fast. The students were all chanting "Go Miss Trayers"-it was pretty cool!
In the end we had biscuits with butter made by our own hands and some whipped cream on fresh strawberries. It was a really fun and eye-opening afternoon!
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