Thursday, October 24, 2013

Spontaneous History Lesson on Chocolate

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At the library, my daughter and I were looking for some cookbooks that specialized in foods from different cultures, and the above book caught my eye. CHOCOLATE in big, bold words. How could I not pick it up?

One thing I've learned over the years as a homeschool mom is flexibility. This does not come very naturally to me, but I am much better at it than I used to be. Praise God! So, one day last week, the kids and I had a spontaneous history lesson on one of my favorite subjects. :) Yummy.

The Aztecs are not my favorite people group to learn about, but I do have them to thank for utilizing the seeds from the cacao trees and turning them into a drink called xocolatl (zho-KOH-lah-tl). And then I guess I have the Europeans to thank for making chocolate less bitter and turning it into a tasty treat, and so on, and so on.

Anyway, my family found the book, The Story Behind Chocolate to be quite educational and interesting! After I read the book aloud and after we took an online "tour" showing us how chocolate is made, we drove to the store to pick out some chocolate treats in honor of some of the historical figures we encountered in the book. In the picture, we are representing Mr. Nestle, Mr. Hershey, and Ruth Wakefield who invented chocolate chip cookie dough. Oh, how I love these people!!



I am so glad I decided to be spontaneous! I think my kids will remember this lesson for quite a while.
If you want to read all about chocolate, I highly recommend The Story Behind Chocolate, great for ages 8 and up.

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