Day 2: Cooking, English, U.S. History, and Science

Cooking was just a fun hour of measuring stuff. Then I demonstrated just why dry measures are best for dry ingredients, and liquid measures for liquid. I showed them the measuring cup I prefer for sticky stuff like peanut butter and honey (and why),

"and then shoooop you push up the middle part and it comes out clean!" 

and I showed them why weight measurement is best for things like flour. Thankfully, when I had them each measure out a cup of flour, they each came out at slightly different weights, or that wouldn’t have been such a good demonstration.

Somehow or other, the question of what certain ingredients smell like came up, and I ended up having them whiff some molasses. HAHAHAHA they hated that. Then I explained where molasses comes from (it’s a by-product of the sugar refining process, in case you didn’t know), and they couldn’t believe it. I told them that a common baking substitute for brown sugar is just white sugar plus molasses. They couldn’t believe that either. So we determined that after the rest of our “classes” we’d do a taste test. Baking cookies would provide an excellent vehicle for both the test and practical application of their new measuring skills. SWEET. (Literally! Ha!) (Yes, I amuse myself.)

English was quiet, just the boys working in their workbooks while I cleaned up Cooking Class. Good stuff, though. Now I have a better idea of what they understand there.

For our first foray into U.S. History I took us over to the giant world map, and covered four main points: Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, the transfer of world dominance from Spain to England, and Jamestown. They seemed to get it. I hope history is more interesting for them in this story-like format than it was for me throughout my school years. I hated history; it was so dry and dense. It was the Lembas Bread of learning, and I was an unexcited Gollum trying to choke it down, though it burned as it went.

In other news, I’m a nerd.

Anyway, I hope I can make it more interesting for my boys, is my point.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I want to make sure the boys are well grounded in the scientific method before we begin any experimentation. So that was today’s science lesson: The Scientific Method. We’re going with the 6-step version (Question, Research, Hypothesis, Experiment, Conclusion, Communicate). We came up with some goofy sentences to help us remember the steps in the proper order, then realized our cookie taste test was an experiment in disguise! So we formalized it.

1.       Question - Do cookies made with brown sugar taste like cookies made with a substitute made of white sugar plus molasses?

2.       Research

a.       Molasses is basically what’s left over when cane sugar is refined into white sugar (a point in its favor).

b.   White sugar plus molasses is a common substitute for brown sugar in recipes (another point in its favor)

c.      Molasses does NOT smell anything like brown sugar (a point against).

d.   Molasses looks very much like "tentacle blood" (a point against, but duly noted by Josh for future use in a horror movie).

3.       Hypothesis

a.       The cookies will taste only slightly different.

b.      The cookies made with molasses will likely taste a little gross.

4.       Experiment

a.       Bake two batches of peanut butter cookies, with all ingredients identical except for the brown sugar/white sugar plus molasses.

b.      Blind taste test.

c.       Data

                                                              i.      The cookies really did taste very similar.

                                                            ii.      Josh noted a slightly saltier taste in Cookie “A,” which he determined to be the brown sugar cookie (it was not).

                                                          iii.      Ben noted a slightly more sugary taste in Cookie “A,” which he correctly identified as the molasses cookie.

                                                           iv.      I thought they tasted exactly alike.

                                                             v.      Joseph thought that when tasted side by side they tasted pretty much the same, although he slightly preferred Cookie “B” (the brown sugar cookie).

5.       Conclusion – If a difference is detectable at all, it’s a very slight one.

6.       Communication – Um, this is our report.

Also: COOKIES! Nomnomnom! Hooray for science!

I deem Day Two a success, since we had fun and learned and I was bizarrely relaxed throughout the day. I expected to be way more frazzled. I WAS exhausted by the end of the day, though. It was just as well Matt & I only had time for one episode of Eureka (we're working our way through Season 3)(because you care), because I'd have probably fallen asleep had we attempted a second.