Vegan Banana Pancakes... of DOOM!

Class W (aka Block 4) was being introduced to this week's cooking labs. We're making vegan pancakes. "Aw!" whined the class. "Why?" I asked. "What do you know about vegan food that makes you disappointed about this lab?" They didn't know. One asked, in disgust, "Is there going to be tofu in this recipe?"

Why? Actually, a severe egg allergy, that's why. Since Class W has a cluster of nut and peanut allergies, they were a bit more understanding once I explained.

I read out the ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, a mashed banana and soy milk.

"Soy Milk? But males aren't supposed to drink soy milk. It makes us less... less... um... manly."
Now, since it was an egg allergy we were avoiding, I could have used regular milk, but I wanted an opportunity to introduce a vegan recipe. And my vegan student seemed happy enough - but I think they use this recipe at home... and her group made beautiful pancakes.

Almond milk is out, of course, all those nut allergies. There's still "oat milk" and "rice milk"... but let's not go crazy here.

Three classes of vegan pancakes later... my 11 and 12 year old boys are less "manly" but the pancakes were pretty good. Some groups inexplicably made pancake "scrunchies" - pancakes which refused to be flipped and instead scrunched up like angry fists. Some pancakes refused to cook, despite the seemingly functional electric grills.

The biggest obstacle continues to be ingredient disbursal - I just haven't found an efficient way for all 6 groups to get their ingredients quickly and accurately. This means that the last group to get organized enough to send their unit manager for ingredients doesn't stand a chance of finishing on time.

Like this, only worse.

Next time... for sure.

Chicks in the Classroom

Animal Husbandry is hard. I don't know if any of the students learned it, but the teacher certainly did.

I booked an incubator and 12 chicken eggs for the term (actually, all 4 terms). My goal was to start to reconnect students with the food system, by letting them get acquainted with some real, live chickens.

The first three weeks were quiet. The incubator was set up, there wasn't much to see, but the kids kept an eye on the calendar and the upcoming Hatch Day. By Day 20, there was quite a bit of excitement, the eggs were wiggling! On Day 21, tiny chirps and peeps were heard! By the end of the day, though, the only progress was one small chip in one eggshell.

Day 22 - some chirping, no chipping. I was worried. I sent a few messages to the farm owner to find out what, if anything, I should do. She advised (that evening) that I should help the first one out. So, back to school I went, and tried to figure out - how to you help hatch an egg? Anyway, I got the top of the egg off, and left the bottom for the chick to figure out.

Day 23 - Chick 1 was still stuck to its shell. The umbilical cord hadn't twisted off. I took care of that, and put the chick into the pen under the heat lamp. There was one more egg with a chip in it. I enlarged that hole, and checked in with the farmer. By 9 am it was decided that I was opening eggs.

It was messier than I thought. There was blood. I was anxious and queasy. Four of the eggs were undeveloped, they must have died in the first week. One had been deemed unfertilized and disposed of earlier. Chick 2 was assisted from the shell and sent to the heat pen. Chick 3 was transferred to the pen later that morning. The remainder stayed, partially opened in the incubator, which I blocked off from (most of the) prying eyes. Some children see a sign that says "Do not disturb" and immediately peek to see why.

At the end of the day, I went back to the incubator. One chick was still breathing so I moved it to the pen. Another was dead - it's distended tummy hinting that it hadn't developed properly. Two more had died in their shells. I didn't look closely enough to investigate why.

So, 4 chicks came home with me this weekend. Chick 1 (Clumsy) since he couldn't quite get the hang of his feet, Chick 2 (Cheeky) who has tons of attitude, Chick 3 (Pretty), the dark one of the bunch, and still quite fragile at day's end, and Chick 4 (Tiny), the last one out, and the most delicate.

Saturday - at home. Cheeky and Pretty are up and peeking playfully at each other. Tiny is still resting in a small bowl but breathing (I put her in a shallow dish to keep the others from pestering her). Clumsy, however, didn't make it through the second night. I'm surprised, and disappointed - he had been so social, and vocal, I thought Clumsy and Cheeky were the survivors, for sure.

I don't know that I want to repeat the project. The kids are highly engaged, yes, but I'm feeling really bad. I knew that not all the eggs would hatch or all the chicks survive, but I thought we'd at least meet the average, or at best, beat the odds. I thought the chicks would hatch naturally,  and I'm wondering if I've done something wrong that made it harder for them.

I guess Lesson 1 is: you can follow all the instructions, and do everything according to procedure, but Nature is still a wild card. It's a good lesson, but a hard one. But who learned it? The kids, or me?

P. S. About noon on Saturday, "Tiny" died. It had been struggling to breathe and seemed weak, but "Pretty" was in the same condition yesterday, and is quite perky today. I had held out some hope for the littlest one.

Saturday evening: Cheeky and Pretty are looking strong. Pretty is less willing to let Cheeky push her around and the peck order is in constant flux. Their vocalizations have changed - what was initially a strong CHEEP, is now a more melodic chirp. It's so flutelike, in fact, that I have tuned to a flute-based classical music station, which they seem to respond to. I hope they both make it through the night.

Sunday morning: Cheeky and Pretty are both still looking good. I hope that means they're sturdy enough to survive.

Tuesday evening: Tomorrow morning, Cheeky and Pretty head back to their roots, their mothers and their siblings. And just in time, too! Pretty's starting to move fast and she zoomed into the far wall of their pen today. Cheeky is starting to get a little lift-off too. Apparently, the lid isn't to keep the children OUT of the pen, it's to keep the chickens IN.

I've spent more time observing the chicks than most of the students, and I've been fascinated to watch their quick development. Each new skill and behaviour is amazing! I'd mentioned that on the weekend, we listened to a lot of flute music, to which I thought the chicks responded... I tried some Bach. They had a lot to say. Especially during organ music - which does features lots of flute-like trills. Having noticed their "fondness" for organ music, I put on some music after class, and went to chat in another room. Later on, the other teacher and I heard a terrible outcry from the chicks in the next room. Perplexed, we came in to see what the trouble was. Nothing. Well, the music was finished...

I wonder if life on the farm includes music lessons?

Term One settles in

Fortunately, the veggie plate labs proceeded more or less in order. There was no bloodshed, at least (see previous entry). So we're settling in and picking up the pace.

The incubator has been in the class for 2 weeks now, and the chicks are due to hatch in just a few days. Since this is a long (long) weekend (not complaining!), the eggs and incubator are at home with me. Next weekend, the chicks need to come home with me!

In the meantime, we've started sewing! The grade 8s are making button banners - thanks to the incredible support from our Aboriginal Education people who brought mounds of felt, and then returned with even more mounds of pre-cut animal shapes and letters, so that each student could have their totem of choice and their initials. It's a lot of sewing. I'm not sure how we'll be able to pace it. The students appear to be excited about the project!

The 6/7s are making phone cozies from felt.

We've spent some time on design, and now we're onto practice sewing, with relatively few complaints. Overheard (from the back of the room) - "I'm the best at sewing". Retort from the other side of the class - "You wish". Aside from that, they're working pretty hard and not being terribly noisy about it. Maybe that's just the block 7 class. After the chaos of a very large grade 8 class, and a large 6/7 class, the smaller end-of-the-day group has startled me with their composure. Must remember to enjoy it while it lasts!

Of Bears, Blood and Apple Crisp

In the middle of the afternoon, the principal's tenor came through the P.A. system. The bear is cleared. Business as usual. And I stood there completely perplexed. What did I miss? Shouldn't there have been an announcement stating the appearance of the bear? What had I missed? And when did I miss it?

Eight years at this school and there hasn't been a bear sighting in all that time. Some of the neighbouring schools are plagued by wandering bears all the time. Our side of town, just isn't really bear country.

The students were happy to fill me in - the announcement was before lunch. Although WHEN before lunch varied a great deal. It seems that there was an announcement as I was cleaning up the first cooking lab of the year. No wonder I didn't know there was a bear on campus!

If my first foods lab last year had been like this one, I certainly would have resigned the post, on the spot. Tomorrow is "Let's try to fix this mess and produce an edible apple crisp". I'll settle for an apple soggy.

I gave my demo, explained the salient points carefully, tried to not overload them... and set them to their task. Within minutes I was told someone was bleeding. Not unusual, that... but I scurried over to assess the damage. The patient was a little green. He couldn't tear his eyes from the wound, which was quite hypnotically dripping... into the sink, onto the floor... Yikes!

Switching into First Aid mode, I had him apply pressure, coaxed him to breathe more deeply... all that. Meanwhile, 20 some odd 11 and 12 year olds are on hold waiting for their ingredients, not knowing what to do. I assign a Teacher's Helper, who does her valiant best to deal with the supplies... it's a big job. My patient is still bleeding. I send a runner for help, and I move the boy out of his unit so he can sit down and I try to get the rest of the class running more smoothly.

No, it didn't help. By then, it was really too late for the rest of them. I have a fridge full of apple crisp in various states of assembly. The patient was attended to by the staff first aider, and returned before the end of class, looking much less green.

I may have been a bit green. There was blood to mop up, and while I'm not all that squeamish (I'm a mom, after all), it doesn't take much blood to make a big mess. And I was worried. Cutting your finger with a vegetable peeler must hurt... a lot... so he managed the whole situation very well.

The other classes have been told that no one is allowed to get hurt, at all, that all the turns were used up this morning. Let's hope it gets better. Tomorrow, we have to fix some apple crisps, and the 8s have Banana Muffins to bake.

Will the Poltergeist get the last laugh?

Things have gone missing and have moved, seemingly of their own volition, throughout the year. Mostly, it's just been irritating. The item that worried me was the Chef Knife. I have six, new, not-very-good-quality-but-sharp knives. Okay, I have 5. One has been missing for a few weeks now. I didn't put it in any of my silly hiding spots. The Community Schools group swears that they didn't touch it. I can't see any of the kids sneaking off with it (Really. It disappeared between labs, and they'd have to get into a cupboard and into a drawer.) None of the other staff know anything. It's just weird.

Well, it got a little weirder today. I found a knife. Not that one, either! Actually, I found 3 knives, a chef's knife and two paring knives. They have a decent edge, so I assume I sharpened them this year, and then put them... into my ESL lesson bin?

As I tidied the detritus of the year, I spotted the contents of a plastic tub. "Tchaikovsky? I was going to teach music? What was I thinking?" So, I opened up the bin to rummage through a melange of music books and Canadiana. And 3 knives.

So far, I cannot think of what prompted me to put 3 knives in a bin and then forget about them, for most of the year. I hope I remember. But until I do, the Poltergeist gets the blame.

I should have told them to peel the banana, first

Well, that's it for the year. The last cooking labs are complete and class ends in a few days.

The quinoa brownies turned out really well. The students seemed pleased - or at least satisfied. The last group told them the brownies were gross, so their expectations were low. I don't think you should take culinary recommendations from the group that ruined their recipe. Or the group that measured their salt OVER the dry ingredients. (It's really hard to pick the extra 4.5 ml of salt out of a bowl of dry anything).

The 6/7s made blender smoothies. I'd saved it for last simply because I'd anticipated hot weather, which hasn't arrived. I just didn't want to be baking on a scorching hot day. Four classes of using blenders... they're still a bit iffy about how to wash the silly things, but overall quite good. As we entered the final class, I was feeling pretty good about their ability to complete the lab.

Group 5 erupts in dismay - it's a blender blowout and smoothie ingredients are oozing onto the counter. The problem isn't that the blade assembly is mis-threaded. It's that the blade assembly is sitting, loose, inside the jar. Not attached. At all. No wonder it's leaking!

I get them cleaned up and re-started. (I want water-proof blenders so that I can just deal with a blow out by giving the thing a good rinse. So much faster!) I turn to the group next to them and begin to survey the room. The Special Ed. Assistant swoops in behind me to Group 5. Utters things in disbelief. The boys look baffled. She holds up an unpeeled banana that she intercepted on its way into the blender.

I should have told them to PEEL the banana before putting it in the smoothie. Is it ironic that the next day, some visiting high school students ran past my class dressed (among other things) as a banana?

And that's my first year teaching Home Ec. And you know what? I'm looking forward to next year.

The Applesauce Must Go On!

There are so many good reasons why I should have stayed home the past two days.

1. I am a bad role model. I should not teach cooking labs when I am sick.
2. My classes are noisy, and that much noise on a stuffed up head is very unpleasant.
3. Now, I'm really tired, and it will take me that much longer to get better.

Oh well. I had one good reason why I chose to come to work with a rotten cold.

1. The 6/7s are making applesauce.

Yesterday, one class was cooking, and another was prepping. Today, the final class was cooking. I don't feel comfortable leaving cooking labs for guest teachers, unless we can discuss in advance and ensure that they can and want to deal with it. While I have no doubts that a certain Guest can indeed handle anything and everything that comes up, would she choose that harrowing experience, or would she rather pick up another on-call job? Yeah, I don't blame her either. (I told the kids that Ms. T. could handle the job, but she might not be my friend afterwards. They think that's funny, but they nod, sagely.)

Since this lab involves grade 6/7 student handling knives for the first time, and boiling pots of apples and sugar, I decided to just deal with it.

Good thing! Another teacher in my school was away, and no teacher was sent to replace her. The principal and vice principal covered her class. I probably wouldn't have been replaced either. Yikes!

The kids are actually quite nervous about the knife skills lab. We go over knife handling and safety (especially around dishwashing - and some classes did hear about the time my little brother put the just-sharpened knife in the sink without telling me, and I got cut AND I got in trouble for swearing at him!)

I'm more concerned about the cooking part. Six stoves, each with a boiling pot, and 25 kids who bounce around like Tigger. Anyone who cannot behave sensibly gets sent to the hallway to compose themselves. If they calm down sufficiently, they can come back. (Everybody does - No One wants to miss a cooking lab!)

So... Applesauce lab successfully completed. One injury - not related to either knives or boiling pots (she slipped on the floor during clean up, and bashed her leg on the table, poor thing). The rest of the classes were content to watch Bill Nye the "don't bug the teacher, she's sick and lost her voice" Guy. I love you, Bill. Never change :-)

Poltergeists

Who you gonna call?

It was irritating when kitchen utensils moved from drawer to drawer whenever I wasn't looking.
It was confounding when measuring cups would disappear, then reappear from one class to the next and cookie sheets would hide in plain sight in the cupboards.
But now it's dangerous. My poltergeist is playing with fire.

Wednesday. Block 5. Right after lunch. Ten or fifteen minutes into a knitting session. It's noisy. They don't knit quietly. "TEACHER! That burner's on... maximum. It's glowing red!"

Yikes! The group seated in front of the blazing stove denies all culpability. They appear genuinely puzzled. And offended. They know that this offence is worthy of a visit to the principal.

In their absence, I tested the burner to see how long it takes to heat up, and turn red. Two minutes for the heat to be palpable, almost 4 for it to turn red. The smell is distinctive. It has to be happening during this class. If it were the class before lunch, I'd notice the second I walked in the room. In fact, I'd probably notice before I even left the room. It's not the sort of thing you'd overlook.

Thursday. Block 5. Same thing. "TEACHER! Someone turned on our stove again!"

The only visitors to that group has been the girls from the neighbouring group. Not your prime suspect types either. But, let's be objective. They were at the scene of the crime, so I enquire, quite seriously. "I did it yesterday", confesses one," but I didn't do it today."

Hmm... I launch into graphic descriptions of the dangers of clothing and hair catching fire, and hope that I've subdued them. They seem subdued. Good thing that the boy closest to the scene of the crime has very short hair. Longer hair, or a carelessly placed gym bag could have spelled d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to avoid a repeat, or worse. At the beginning of this term, I noticed that someone was flicking the oven closest to the exit door on as they departed. I had worried about kids hiding someone's gym strip or math book in an oven the way they like to hide things in the drawers or cupboards. Now the burners.

Should I sneak something onto the burner that smells so that I catch it sooner? Or would that make it worse? If I caused the fire, I'd certainly be in trouble! Maybe I could just switch the stoves off at the fuse box. If I could find which switches control what.

The fastest way to get great answers is to email the other Home Ec teachers via the listserv, who respond with amazing speed, with diverse, thoughtful and sometimes funny answers. Most of the early answers were similar and advised cutting the power to the stoves. Some teachers have a master power switch for the room - very handy during fire drills (something I hadn't quite worked out how to handle).

Friday. Block 5... the caretaker and I spent a long time trying to track down the fuse breakers for each stove. He didn't have any more success than I did. We found 3. Maybe 4 (that oven's not working anway). The others, he unplugged. Just before the end of the block, would you believe it? "TEACHER! It happened again!" At least the power was off this time.

 I do not look forward to unplugging and replugging the ovens each lab, but it's almost summer break. Maybe by fall, I'll have a better idea.

Or I'll learn how to placate my poltergeist.

P. S. My voice is missing. The latest in a rash of mischief in the Home Ec room. I blame the poltergeist.  It couldn't possibly be this awful, rotten cold I picked up.

Bill Nye in the Foods room

I love Bill Nye. I admit this freely and without hesitation. Bill Nye is awesome. That show, on tape, has played a supporting role in my classroom since I started teaching. Enter teaching Home Ec... Goodbye Nye? Not a chance. He's Bill Nye the Home Ec guy in my class now, and we've watched "Germs", "Nutrition", "Agriculture" and I've saved "Pollution Solutions" for emergencies. I do, often, have to deal with the question "Isn't he dead?" (Thank you, The Onion - the students have no idea what you are, or what a parody is, but they've heard the urban legend)  Happily the answer remains "No."

The 6/7s are still happy to watch Bill Nye episodes, and they giggle, or chuckle at the jokes and sight gags. The 8s require an apology in advance -  that I acknowledge that this is too young for them, and a little outdated, but the information is still quite relevant... then they can cut loose and enjoy Bill too.

Today, after 4 terms of Home Ec, and about the 10th showing of "Nutrition" (which really does have some good gags) I found out something interesting about my students: students with autism REALLY love Bill Nye's gags. They are the kids who laugh out loud, even when no one else does. They have huge grins on their faces, and are clearly having a wonderful time. The students who are developmentally low find some fun in the show's gags, but don't really get the jokes, so don't laugh as much.

I'm recommending Bill Nye videos as a diagnostic tool. Wondering if you have autistic students in your class? Show a Bill Nye video. Let me know what you find out! Science Rules!

The end is nigh

Term 4 just started, and I've met all my new 6/7 students - about 75 of them. Day One is me talking at them all block, much to their chagrin. New to the lecture are Rules #1 and #2. Rule #1 - Do not enter the room and ask me "Are we cooking today?" If we are cooking, you will know about it, and you will not need to ask. Rule #2 - Do not enter the room and ask "Are we knitting today"? Similarly, if we are starting to knit, you will know about it, and it won't happen before mid-term. Rule #3 is "Do not enter the room and ask "What are we doing today?" I, seriously, cannot take another term of hearing that 75 - 100 times a day.

Term 4... warm weather, grade seven-itis, and class lists that show that whoever planned the classes has a wicked sense of humour. Truly, they saved the best for last... some wonderful kids, and some horrible combinations of ... um... interesting characters.

Lots of my Green Team leadership students are contained in this term, which is nice. A cluster of my beginning ELL students have also arrived. It's nice that they like each other enough to sit together, but I'm quite honestly going to have to assign a translator to that group. My beginners may speak enough English to get by, but they're in for a shock when they find out that my ELL teacher voice and my Home Ec teacher voice run at completely different speeds. As an ELL teacher, I'm pretty mellow, but as a Home Ec teacher on Food Lab days, I'm a little intense.

Food allergy lists look pretty manageable this time round. No phobias, no unusual allergies. Looks like I can stick with the tried and true recipes, although I may let them do one of the Grade 8 recipes. The cookies were a real challenge for the not-very-attentive 8s, but might be an appropriate challenge for my I-still-want-to-please-the-teacher younger classes.

However, this is the cohort that led me to remove the knives from the units. I think I should get another fire extinguisher. And a first aid kit.

I have this on my desk. They don't get it.

Questions - headdesk or just facepalm?

This week's submission:

Why do we have to learn about farms and stuff; what's that got to do with food?

And last week's:

Water... Oh! Why is the ocean blue? Is it really because it's 70% whale sperm?

New -

Student - Are we going to learn about alchemy?
Me - Why would we learn how to turn lead into gold, what do you think that has to do with Home Ec?
Him - Oh. I thought that meant healing diseases with plants.
Me - No. We're not doing that either. Maybe in university.

Hipsters don't do the Cinnamon Challenge

The cinnamon challenge is so... last term... it's so... 8th grade. Ew.
Let's just take the fun and games to a whole new level, grade 6/7 style:

It's quesadilla time! I didn't have much success finding a cheese-free alternative to quesadillas, and the kids were begging to make them, so we went with the status quo. I'd been grumbling to myself that quesadillas are so easy... TOO easy... No. No they're not. Not easy. Not for the kids.

The hardest part is listening to all those instructions the teacher gives. How to set up an electric grill. How to grate cheese without grating your fingers (very stressful, actually). How to make sure your ingredients go far enough. How to flip the darned thing once you figure out it might be ready to flip. Nope. There's nothing "easy" about quesadillas.

The students are allowed to bring in extra ingredients, as long as no one in the room is allergic to it. Additionally, they have to reach a consensus in their group about what to share, and what not to share.

A student brought a jalapeno as part of his extras. I knew that little green fruit was trouble when I spotted it in the fridge. During class I spoke to him about the preparation and clean up of hot peppers (yes, I know, it was only a jalapeno. If it were a habanero, I don't think I would have let him use it, honestly.) He's a reliable kid, and it looked good. (Wait for it...)

Class is ticking along reasonably well. Suddenly, a boy bolts from the room, bent double. Two others follow. I worry that he's vomiting, but by the time I get from one side of the room to the other, he's back - and his head is firmly under the water tap, and he's gulping.

My eyes drift to their table. On a cutting board sits a neatly sliced jalapeno pepper. And what do I notice? It's full of seeds. The boy is still gulping water from a tap that the kids are generally reluctant to drink from. Over the roar of the tap and the hum of the class I call to him - Water only makes it worse!

He emerges. Looks desperate. "What makes it better then?" The poor kid is almost begging for mercy. I have to think quickly. I don't eat hot stuff, fortunately though, my son does, so I have some ideas about what might help. The question is - do I have anything in the foods room that will do the trick? I only keep supplies that we're actually going to use for that lab. Milk! I have milk. I bought it thinking we were making muffins. It's in the fridge and it's fresh. I pour him some milk and he finds some relief. Now, he's ready to laugh about it. I warned him it was going in the blog. I don't think he was listening.

Now you're cooking with gas!

Faced with a 2 day week, just before a 2 week Spring Break (if you don't know, don't ask - things have been difficult around these parts), I promised the Grade 8s that we would cook before the break, and I was determined to get the 6/7s started on their knitting.

The 8s made it through their Apple Crisp lab, some better than others, and the 6/7s are well on their way to becoming knitters, some more than others. Pretty good for 2 days work.

Block 7. Last block of the day. Friday. The 8s have finished their cooking lab, and the last batch of 6/7s settle in to learn to knit. About 2:30, someone says "It smells funny... like gas". And I realize that she's right, and I can smell it too. So can the rest of that group. So can the group closest to them. And the group further away who weren't paying attention to the rest of us.

Dig out my cell phone and call the office. Vice Principal is teaching and Principal has "stepped away from his office" (which could mean anything). I let out a Bad Word. I explain the problem and ask the secretary to send me a Caretaker a.s.a.p., which she does.

I move the students away from the odour while the Caretaker investigates. Noticing that it's nearly the end of class makes it easy to wrap things up without upsetting the kids. They gather their things and move into the hallway to wait for the end of the block.

Turns out that some gas was being purged nearby. I honestly don't know what that means, or looks like. I'm going to look it up.

Do you think that if you're going to perform a procedure near a school that smells like a gas leak, you'd call the Principal and let someone know? Jeez.

Cheese!

Close call with the phobia today - I'm going to have to be more careful.

The grade 8s are making pizza. This, of course, includes, cheese. Yes, yes, phobias and cheese. Try to keep up with me here. See the last entry. The phobia victim is not in the grade 8 class, but the class right after.

So. The 8s are scrambling to finish up and get to their next class. I'm scrambling to tidy up and prepare for my next class which is trickling in around the edges. I lead them along with my preamble about our food based science experiment, and if we put cream into a jar and shake it, what do you think we'll get? (Um. Not very many kids guess correctly, in case you're wondering. Maybe 10 percent) Since one of the guesses was cheese (a very common answer, that and ice cream), one boy perked up in alarm.

As he rapidly scanned my work station for clues, I noticed that the mozzarella block was still out and quickly threw a towel over it. I'm sure he saw... but he didn't flee. Any predictions to make about the upcoming term? I'd love to hear them. Just remember, truth is stranger than fiction.

Food Allergies and Phobias

I had wondered if I would run out of material after a term or two. No fear! Looks like bloggable items will never be in short supply.
The new term of 6/7s started this week, and the first order of business is the allergy/food sensitivity sheet. A few children asked questions to clarify what they wanted to write so I had a general sense of what the concerns were, but I was still surprised.

• A child with an anaphylactic allergy to plums. This is my first encounter with severe fruit allergy. 
• A child with lactose intolerance, who can eat small amounts of milk but cannot eat a giant ball of cheese. Well, who can, really? 
• A child who reportedly eats only organic food. Staggering to think about, honestly, in terms of cost and effort. 
• Another one with allergies who reacts to raw, unpeeled, fruits and veggies.
• A hard-core vegan. 
• The usual peanut and nut allergies, a latex allergy and two who revealed medicine allergies - not that I plan to dispense codeine or penicillin in class. But good to know about!
• And the child who reported he's phobic about cheese. That one looked like a hoax, but we spoke, and his teacher checked and it seems on the level. The kid has a cheese phobia. Now there's some kryptonite that you don't want to reveal to your teenage friends!

So it looks like I'm reviewing my recipe ideas this weekend. Nothing with plums, that's for sure. But I might want to keep some cheese strings on hand for self-defense.

The Mid Point

Funny thing... we're about at the mid-point of the year. I've definitely recovered from the initial stage-fright I had at the beginning of the first term, and I'm willing to try almost anything in Home Ec now, as long as it can be compressed into my time-frame of 41 minutes. And I'm bored. Not during class...no, class is far too busy for me to consider the luxury of boredom. I'm bored in theory. Now that I'm approaching some recipes for the third time this year, or I do the same recipe three times a week (like I do with the 6/7 classes), I'm getting kind of antsy.

A new group of 8s is in the midst of their first cooking lab. I'm ready to pick up the pace - but they're not. I don't think it's a coincidence that I come home on Apple Crisp lab day, and make a batch of apple crisp - something I rarely made before this school year. Partly, the lab proved how easy it is, so, why not? And partly, it smells so darned good ;-)

The 8s get more restless each term, and I keep trying to move things along a little faster to hold their interest, or at least to tear them away from their iPhones. Today's demo was just an introduction - here's how to prepare the apples, so go to it. They were, as I mentioned, restless. Until they tried it. Payback time. "This is harder than it looks!" Yes, it is. I've peeled a lot of apples this year. I make it look easy.

Some students, not content with the challenge of the task at hand, decided to further challenge themselves... or rather, a classmate. The Cinnamon Challenge, it's called. I guess he succeeded... although I certainly don't advise trying it. Most of the class was too busy to notice, but I decided that cinnamon is now a controlled substance. When one 8th grade boy tries something on a dare, others are sure to follow.

Regardless, they managed to get their apple crisps into the fridge, ready for baking tomorrow, although clean up didn't go too well. We'll debrief. Whether they like it or not.

Quinoa Brownies 2.0

I still haven't figured out why there was such a difference in this term's QBs and last terms. Granted, the grade 8s were woefully inattentive during the demo - so much so, that I'm wondering if I should have just cancelled the demo in progress, or the cooking lesson. I think making them struggle on was probably for the greater good.

Because they were so inattentive, all the "improvements" I made to the recipe instructions were for naught. Like good little automatons, they brought up their trays with bowls and measuring cups - even though I'd been VERY CLEAR that I wanted: someone to bring up their saucepan to start the quinoa; someone else to bring up a glass bowl to get the butter melting, another to start on their dry ingredients... face-palm...

Two of the girls spent a great deal of time analyzing the vanilla bottle. One of the ingredients was "alcohol". Back in their unit, they announced that they would be unable to eat the product because of the 1 millilitre of alcohol contaminated vanilla... it didn't (seem to) occur to them, that they could just OMIT it. (Someone, please calculate for me, how much of that 1 ml was alcohol) face-palm again. And a big sigh. Oh well, the boys of the unit were under no such restrictions and were happy to eat the extra portions.

Despite the frustrations, we were on task and on time at the end of the block. It was baking day where the oddities came through. Two groups found their quinoa mixture so thick that they couldn't get it out of the blender (I guess it was undercooked and absorbed the rest of the liquid ingredients overnight?) The brownies took longer to bake today... or they got in the oven later. Either way, it was the end of the block and the finished product was barely "done" enough to be removed. One group stayed late. I didn't even get to check to ensure the product was edible! Oh well, I'll get some feedback tomorrow.

The poor 6/7s. In they trickle, to a room that is saturated with the smell of chocolate. "What are we making?" they ask eagerly. "Nothing." is the teacher's heartless reply. "That was the grade 8s. You're cooking next week."

We're doing quesadillas and smoothies next week (not at the same time, although... that would, almost, work.) I think I'll put "Mudpies" forward as a bonus if-you're-good lesson.

Not what they're supposed to look like. I think the guys went overboard on the blender step.

P. S.  the alcohol content estimate... artificial vanilla is reportedly no more than 25% alcohol, so that 1 ml of vanilla contains 1/4 or 0.25 ml of alcohol. Divided by the six portions then each student is consuming 0.042 ml. Leaving it OUT would have been a workable solution. 
(Hmm... Do I still have some leftover rum balls around here somewhere???)


P.P.S the last of the leftover rum balls were gone. Made mudpies. All of the chocolatey goodness, but none of the zing.