Pretzels?!

With the school year coming to a close, I asked Sophie what she wanted to learn about this summer.  After bringing up casually a few times, she answered, "Pretzels!" Pretzels?!  Apparently she still does not know her own mother because in that lovely topic, there is a slew of fun to be had and learned. 

We started by studying Germany, a country that is well known for their pretzels and bakeries.  We started our poster of all things German. We talked about family history (my dad having served a two-year LDS mission there and Neal's maternal great grandparents being from there as well as some of my own ancestors).

We made Black Forest cake for my birthday, which by the way, was not created in the Black Forest region, but the alcohol they use in the recipe was.  Ours, surely, made a mock of the original cake, as the closest thing it had to alcohol was a 1/2 tsp. of almond extract.

Our library provided us with several fairy tales written by the Grimm bothers, who were born in Germany.  We read The Frog Prince, Snow White and Rose Red, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood--all a little messed up but still considerably cheery tales compared the ghastly tales of Heinrich Hoffman (1809-1894). I did not read his tales to my kids because I like sleeping through the night, undisturbed by children plagued by nightmares.  No fuzzy bunnies, unicorns, and singing birdies from that author.  Try a crazed tailor that comes and chops off thumbs of little thumb suckers or a girl that plays with matches and is burned to death! Thus, we stuck with the Grimm brothers.

Also, thanks to our local library, we picked up some great CDs about the German composers Bach and Handel from the Classical Kids: A Symphony of Stories of All Ages Collection to introduce the kids to their music. Each tells a story with many excerpts from their well known pieces.  I even enjoyed listening to them.  We popped them in and listened to them in the car as we drove around town.  Sophie would not listen to the CDs unless Rhys was in the car too, stating, "that is wouldn't be fair if he missed it."

After finishing up our Germany based fun, we moved to the computer to learn about knot tying, an essential skill when it comes to pretzel making.  There are books written on just this subject but thankfully, we were able to find some cool videos about knot tying and what uses they might have.  Then we practiced tying our shoes.  Actually, it was just Sophie and I and we each held one of my running shoes to practice.  I think she'll have it for sure by the time school starts, to her teacher's glee.

After practicing knot tying, we were ready to make pretzels!  The climax!  We ground wheat, made dough, had fun trying to get a good twist, made letters and shapes, boiled them in water and baking soda (better than lye for lye pretzels!), salted and baked them!  They were good but not very chewy, more like just a dinner roll texture.  Oh well!

And what's a pretzel with out a good dose of salt?!  We watched two brief videos on how companies harvest salt and how one can make sea salt at home.  Then we talked about sodium, reading food and drink labels, and that too much or too little was not good.  Then we got artsy and made salt water colored paintings.  They turn out quite sparkly and pretty.

With our salted pretzels down the hatch, it was time to consider the workings of the human digestive tract.  We spotlighted each part of the journey.  We examined what happens to a saltine cracker as the enzyme amylase breaks down the starch into sugar.  We discussed how saliva and chewing break down the food and make it soft and slippery so we can swallow it.

The esophagus was represented by my neighbor's ruined hose.  I actually asked if anyone had a bad pair of hose and she walked one over to my house.  See what great neighbors we have!  We demonstrated peristalsis by putting a ball in the stocking, as food that has entered the esophagus after swallowing, and then having the kids figure out that they had to squeeze it down the stocking for the "food" to move--peristalsis!

Once the food made it's way to the stomach, juices were added that contain acids to break the food up into smaller pieces.  This was represented by putting chunks of bread into a sealed clear bag, along with some pumpkin seeds (to demonstrate how important chewing well is for optimal digestion) and then adding the gastric juices, or orange juice in our example.  We looked at what happened to the soggy food and then talked about how the stomach is a muscle that squeezes the food to help to digest it.  So they squeezed the heck out of it and then we looked again--thick soup, with whole seeds.

To spotlight the next part of food's journey, we talked about how the small intestine absorbs nutrients and delivers them to the blood stream to feed our muscles, organs, and what not.  We poured the nasty contents of the stomach baggie into a container and dipped rolled up paper towels into the mix to mimic the villi of the inner wall of the small intestine. 

Then onto the large intestine where we talked about how it absorbs water so our poop is solid rather than diarrhea. Oh the giggles that were heard and the contorted facial expressions!

Then we measured out pieces of colored yarn, a different color for each organ along the path from mouth to large intestine, to determine how long the digestive tract of an adult was and stretched it out along the floor, spanning two rooms from wall to wall!  Amazing! Just under 30 feet in all.

Pretzels. Can't wait to see what they challenge me with next!