Place and TIme: Making Butter

Child's Question: What's an invention?

The Fire and Wind Groups joined together to explore this question.

An invention is something people have built or created to do the work for us 

or to make the work easier and faster.

Both groups have read the story "Winter Days in the Big Woods" and we spent some time talking about the page where Mary helps Ma churn butter. We discussed where we get butter now . . . "From the store!" and we watched a video illustrating how milk is shipped in tanker trucks to a factory where machines churn it into butter and shape it into blocks. We noticed that the machines did most of the work and all the worker had to do was connect hoses and push buttons.

Another video showed butter being made in a churn and we came across an old fiddle song called "Churning Butter" which we listened to as we churned butter using a jar and a lot of energy!

Start with whipping cream

Sharing the work

We made butter!

This is a lot of work!

Venn Diagram

Everyone shared in the work and the children noticed how much time and work it took to make butter. Finally it was ready and everyone sampled store bought butter and home made butter.

We expressed what we learned in a Venn Diagram.