Senior Infants were learning all about food and the café in Aistear for the month of February.
For Science this month, we learned all about the journey of milk and how it gets from the cows to our fridges. We watched a video which showed all about how the milk’s journey starts with the cow eating lots of grass. Next, the cows are milked – this can be done by hand or by a special machine! Then, the milk is heated, this gets rid of any bacteria. After, the milk is kept cold and stored. After this, the milk is put into bottles. These bottles are taken to the supermarkets and put on the shelves. Finally, the milk is bought at the shop and makes its way to your fridge.
Senior Infants loved watching the video which was voiced by a little girl the same age as the boys and girls in our class. After they watched the video, we sequenced the the journey of milk on cards as a whole class, and after we did it in pairs and told each other the story.
We also talked about food items that can be made from milk, one of them being butter. The class watched a video showing how butter used to be made a long time ago using a process called ‘churning’. This is where people used to move cream very quickly in a big bucket until it hardened and turned to butter. Senior Infants then wanted to test if they could turn cream from a liquid into a solid – creating butter.
Step 1: Pour the cream into the jar. The jar should be about half full. Add a pinch of salt.
Step 2. Put the lid on the jar and make sure it’s on tightly.
Step 3. Now for the hard work! Shake the jar lots until you see a lump form in the jar. This could take a long time – maybe even ten minutes!
Step 4. Eventually, you will see a lump and some liquid. The lump is butter and the liquid is buttermilk, an ingredient that can be used in lots of different things.
Step 5. Put the sieve over a bowl. Open the jar and tip the contents into the sieve.
Step 6. You now have separate butter and buttermilk.
We loved how we were able to see how the liquid cream turned into a harder solid and formed butter. We learned that cream is made up of tiny pieces of fat surrounded by water. When you shake the cream, the fat pierces start to clump together in a lump.
After, we tested the butter by putting it on crackers and eating them – they were delicious and tasted just like the butter in the supermarkets!!
