Week 3: Farting Bugs and Reading the Pictures

Its been another exciting week of learning in Rua. Continuing our science theme of fizzing and bubbling, we looked at how yeast eats sugar and farts out gas. 

Farting Bugs Part 1
Some students had experience of baking bread. One even knew how the yeast in the bread produced a gas that helped it rise. After he shared with us, we decided to have a go at making bread to better understand this 'magical' process.

The students worked in small groups which gave lots of opportunities to practise their measuring skills. I was impressed with how careful our bakers were - even managing to measure one and a half teaspoons of yeast with great accuracy. Finally everyone helped with the kneading which made a long, hard job much easier.

The end results were spectacular (and delicious).

Farting Bugs - Part 2
We are hoping for more delicious treats after making our own ginger beer 'bug' from sugar, ginger, lemon juice, water and sultanas. After a few days it started to bubble (ferment)  and all week we carefully fed it and kept it warm. Friday was bottling day. Lots more measuring practise here as we dissolved 4 cups of sugar in 4 cups of boiling water, added the juice of 4 lemons, and then 24 cups of water. (It was convenient there were 24 of us at school that day - once everyone had had a turn we knew we had the right amount.) Finally we added our bug. Now we're crossing our fingers that we'll get fizzy bottles to drink on Tuesday.

Reading the Pictures
To be able to follow our bread and ginger beer recipes, it's important we are super readers. So, every day we spend time practising our reading skills - on our own, in small groups and as a class. One thing we do before attempting the words is 'read the pictures'. By scanning visual clues we can predict what the story or article might be about. We can also anticipate some of the words we might see. It's a skill adults often use without thinking. In this picture we are having great fun reading the pictures in our Scholastic Book Catalogs.


To see more about how we read the pictures click on the link below the picture to watch this short clip from one of our reading groups.

Guided Reading ver2 from Leeanne Arnold on Vimeo.