Lessons

The purpose of this lesson is for students to think critically about what it means to be independent and why it is important to follow directions. Students will first take a “quiz” to test how well they follow directions, then discuss what it means to them to be independent and reflect on how this translates to time spent in the kitchen and garden during FoodPrints.

The purpose of this lesson is to study how the movement of people in the United States impacted their foodways or eating and cooking practices. Students will learn how the foodways of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and European Colonists evolved during the time of Western Expansion. They will practice traditional methods of making flour from a variety of nuts and grains, drying herbs, and saving seeds. This lesson connects to the DCPS 5th grade ELA Unit Westward Expansion and Social Studies Unit, Problems and Perspectives on Progress: Westward Expansion.

The purpose of this lesson is for students to understand how and why cooks need to adjust or scale their recipes. Students will explore different reasons chefs adjust recipes and practice scaling recipes up or down for different situations. They will scale a few recipes for a ‘FoodPrints Cafe’ and work with different units of measurement to understand equivalencies.​

The purpose of this lesson is for students to observe the diversity of food cultures and traditions around the world. Using the book What the World Eats by Faith D’Aluisio and Peter Menzel as an anchor, students will analyze the weekly groceries of one family and compare their findings with their own diets and with families from different parts of the world.

The purpose of this lesson is for students to explore the role of inventions and innovations in the garden and kitchen.  Students will design their own invention after carefully observing the innovative features of tools in their kitchen classroom and school garden. They will also explore biomimicry and look at examples of inventions that were inspired by nature. This lesson supports the 5th Grade DCPS ELA Unit The Process of Discovery and the Development of Inventions.

The purpose of this lesson is for students to explore food chains and investigate how living things acquire energy. Students will search for and learn to identify the roles of producers, consumers and decomposers in the food chain and search for examples of each one in the garden. They will also create food chains with recipe ingredients to further explore how we get energy from the sun. ​