October 26th, 2022

Butter Pasta and Lemonade
​for our friend Lily

Lily shared with the class that for her 5th birthday celebration at school she would like butter pasta as the special meal. Thinking back on a summer memory of making lemonade and selling it together with her sister Grace at a lemonade stand, Lily was also excited to share her wish for lemonade as part of her meal.  

The birthday committee, originally consisting of Cate, Remy and Finlay, also invited other friends throughout the process to assist with specific tasks as Finlay and Cate unfortunately were absent for a some of the days. 

What kind of pasta should we use?
I know the type we want. The penne! - Cate
You want the penne? I love those. - Finlay
I had green pasta before and I love that. - Remy
What is green pasta? - Finlay
It's when you put broccoli on top of that kind of pasta and it turns it green pasta. - Remy

Penne pasta and lemonade. Butter is already gonna be on it (the pasta). Melted. You can't see it because it's melted. - Lily
How could we melt the butter? - Ines
We can put it in the microwave. - Finlay
We can just cook it. - Cate
I think in the microwave. - Lily
​

Our first step in the process was to think about and write down all the ingredients we would need for the committee this week. We then took our lists to the school pantry to check of any ingredients we already have available at the school and to determine which ingredients we would have to buy at the store. 

List created by Cate

List created by Finlay

List created by Remy

​It's like we're shopping at the grocery store. - Finlay
​What a lovely day at the grocery store. - Remy

As we were looking for ingredients in the pantry, Finlay came across a shelf that reminded him of birthdays (We have a whole birthday section! Sprinkles. Candles. Even more sprinkles.) Cate loved the idea to add special candles as part of the table decorations for Lily's birthday and suggested: Let's just take 5. Because she turns 5. This sparked a conversation about other possible table decorations and a question about Lily's favorite color:

All the colors in the rainbow except green. Actually, I do remember my real favorite color. Fuchsia. Fuchsia and turquoise. - Lily 
Do we have fuchsia paint? What if we mixed paint to make fuchsia? - Finlay
All of the oink colors to make it right. - Remy

Throughout their mixing process, Cate and Remy tested their colors, compared it to the fuchsia color Lily identified in a collection of paint chips as her "favorite fuchsia" and decided what color was needed next to come closer to the desired color result. 

We could make little placemats for people and we could write their names in fuchsia. All in fuchsia. - Cate

How many placemats (pieces of paper) do we need to collect? 
counting - adding - numerical order
14 children... And there's three adults. Ines, Sam and Shelly. Because she's 40. - Remy
What about her parents? - Cate
Okay, two more. - Remy
Are Grace and Caroline (Lily's sisters) coming? - Cate

We need a placemat for Shelly. - Cate
I don't like that. I love that! - Lily

Making Lemonade

Before we started our committee work, Cate, Finlay, Remy and Lily exchanged their recipes and ideas for lemonade:

You take a squeezer, put a lemon in it, you hold it under a bowl, then you squeeze the lemon. Then the juice comes out and you have lemonade. - Finlay
You have to take the seeds out. - Cate
And you have to put brown sugar in the other half and then water and then ice and then mix. - Lily
​You have to add water and lemon-y flavor and put the pulp in it and then add some salt. - Cate
Just regular sugar. - Remy
​No, brown sugar. - Lily
It's Lily's birthday. - Cate
Lily should decide which way to do it. - Finlay

In the end, the birthday committee agreed to the following ingredients: Lemons, water, brown sugar and ice cubes.

Measuring
exploring the mathematical concept of volume

If you put something in a measuring cup and then it measure how tall it is. The gels or the water. - Michael
It's liquid. - Remy
You can measure... - Hugh
Juice. - Wilder
You can measure people.- Michael
What is the tool called that you use to measure people? - Ines
A measuring tape. And a scale. It measures your weight. - Hugh
And the measuring tape measures what? - Ines
How tall you are. - Remy and Hugh simultaneously
So a measuring tape measures height. A measuring cup  can measure volume. - Ines
Volume is also loud and quiet. - Hugh 
Yes that's right. Volume is also used to describe the space inside something. Their volume or capacity. - Ines 
They have numbers. One means it's a measuring cup. You see the number? - Hugh
It's full. - Michael, filling up a measuring cup with water

We need to cut it in half first. You need to open it with a knife. - Remy
I didn't know lemons could be that hard. - Wilder, as he used the lemon press

After squeezing out the lemon halves, Remy, Wilder and Hugh tasted the lemons and experienced their sourness and acidity.

​

Our next ingredient for lemonade was BROWN SUGAR:

I'm not sure what it smells like. - Wilder
Kinda sugary I guess. - Hugh
Like sugar and s'mores. - Luke
It has a little bit of sweetness to it to smell gooder. - Remy
Like better? - Hugh
Yeah, better like (than) sugar. - Remy
It smells like pork powder. It's what you put in rice. My mom put it. - Michael

In a separate container we mixed 1 cup of BROWN SUGAR with 1 cup of WATER.
What happened to the sugar after we stirred?
It's liquid. - Remy
It's liquid so we smashed it. - Hugh
It's melted melted into liquid. - Michael
How did it melt?
If something is frozen the gas melts it into something liquid. - Michael
Disappear. Invisible. - Wilder
Gone. - Remy
It's dissolved. - Hugh

The phenomena of states of matter (e.g. from solid to liquid) and changes of matter (like freezing or melting) were also observed as we prepared our ice cube trays.

We have to put it i the freezer. Where is the freezer? - Michael
I can show you! In the pantry. - Remy
Now we have to wait. Forever. - Michael
​Two days. - Hugh

cooking the pasta

​You have to cook the noodles. I think the instructions are in the box. - Finlay
You boil the water and then while you wait you open the pasta until it's ready. You pour it in. Just like tea. - Remy

It's bubbling. That means that it boils. - Finlay
I see tiny bubbles. - Remy
That's good. Tiny bubbles means it's getting good. Wow! It's boilding. Check it out for yourself. - Finlay, inviting Remy to join him on the step stool
It's cooking now. - Remy, pouring in the pasta
Cook for 20 to 40 hours I guess. - Finlay

After we used a strainer to rinse our pasta, we stirred in pieces of butter until they completely melted and coated the penne beautifully. 

​Lily shared with us that sometimes she enjoys cheese on her pasta (parmesan) as well and that she would like her friends to have it as an option during the meal. Tomorrow morning, right before the celebration we are planning on grating cheese to offer as an optional topping for the pasta. For that we will use parmesan - The white kind that you grate in your pasta (Cate) - and a cheese grater - You just put the cheese on a thing with little spikes on on you grate it. (Cate) Like it's two cubes combined and it has little holes on it. (Finlay)

We can't wait to celebrate with our good friend Lily!