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NATIONAL BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE DAY – January 10

NATIONAL BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE DAY

Chocolate lovers, it is time once again to celebrate as January 10th annually recognizes National Bittersweet Chocolate Day. (National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day is celebrated on November 7th.)

Chocolate comes from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao, which has been cultivated for at least three millennia, is grown in Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America. The earliest known documentation of the use of cacao seeds is around 1100 BC. The cacao tree seed has an intensely bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

Once the seeds have been fermented, the beans are then dried, cleaned and roasted.  After roasting, the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are then ground into a cocoa mass which is pure chocolate in rough form.  Usually, the cocoa mass is liquefied then molded with or without other ingredients. This is called chocolate liquor. The chocolate liquor may then be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

Bittersweet chocolate is chocolate liquor to which sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla have been added. It does have less sugar and more liquor than semisweet chocolate. However, the two of them may be interchangeable when baking.

Studies have revealed that there are certain health benefits from eating bittersweet chocolate in moderation, such as lowering blood pressure and helping to protect the heart.

HOW TO OBSERVE #BittersweetChocolateDay

Try one of the following recipes:

Karen Baker’s Bittersweet Chocolate Waffles with Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Bittersweet Chocolate and Stout Beer Ice Cream

Use #BittersweetChocolateDay to post on social media.

NATIONAL BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE DAY HISTORY

National Day Calendar continues to research the origins of this delectable day while baking up some terrific treats. 

There are over 1,500 national days. Don’t miss a single one. Celebrate Every Day® with National Day Calendar®!

1^st Grade:

This week we continued reading The Disappearing Alphabet. This cute book is about what would happen if the alphabet began to disappear. We then started a reading analyzer. A reading analyzer helps the children to better understand what they have read.



 With a student at the doc cam, we slowly went through each step since this is their first time completing a reading analyzer. The children had to think about key words from the story. They also had to list what feelings they had when they read the story.


 We then took a look at what the poem/story was mostly about. This was a slow process, but really got them thinking more about the story. We will finish up with the reading analyzer next week.

2^nd Grade:

We reread chapter 4 of My Father’s Dragon. It has been two weeks, so I figured we should have a little refresher. We worked together to complete a reading analyzer. If you remember from my last entry, a reading analyzer helps the children to better understand what they are reading. 



We then read chapters 5 and 6. I handed them copies so they could follow along. I then sent them off on their own to complete a new analyzer on their own. I walked around the room and assisted them with questions. We will continue with this next week.

3^rd Grade:

I read to the children a few excerpts from the book My Life with the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall. The children then needed to state the two interactions that occurred in a complete sentence.  We discussed whether it was accidental or purposeful, whether it was positive or negative, and if it was fleeting or deep and lasting.


 Once we went through the first few I sent them off on their own. Throughout the room there were different stations sent up with excerpts from the book.  The children went off on their own to read the excerpts and answer the questions on their chart. We will finish this up next week.

4^th Grade:

The girls continued working on their Tecumseh/ Indiana history timeline. They finished up with the Tecumseh side and moved on to the Indiana Territory side. They were able to use history books, historical timelines, and/or the internet to locate eight to ten important events that occurred in the Indiana Territory from 1765 to 1814, or American events related to Indiana at that time                                              and list them on the timeline.

 The children were able to work in pairs while completing this activity. Next week we will discuss the events that were entered into the timeline.

1^st Grade:

We back tracked a bit this week due to our long break. We continued to discuss transitivity. If you remember from when we started this lesson, a transitive relationship is one where, if A is related to B and B is related to C, then A is related to C.  The children have been using transitivity during this lesson by weighing different objects. 


We started a Think Deeply where the children had to view two scales measuring a bag of pennies to a coconut and a papaya. The first thing they had to do is put the items from heaviest to lightest. Then they had to decide if the coconut was heavier than the papaya.  Once they made their choice they had to explain how they came to this conclusion. Most wrote down that the coconut was down so that makes it heavier. Some of the children grew frustrated. It can be hard to write down what we know in our minds. We discussed how they know this step by step again. Then that light bulb went off and it was like “oh yeah”.

2^nd Grade:

The children finally finished up with their tessellation wall murals. The children had an extremely hard time with this lesson. I think towards the end most had a better understanding of how to place the shapes. The idea was to place the 2-3 shapes in such a way that they could flip, slide or turn them into a different space. I went through each one and had the children explain to me their                                            pattern.

 We then moved on to a Think Deeply. This helps the children to explain in writing their work. They needed to list the shapes used, how they put the basic unit together, and explain how they moved the basic unit to create the wall mural. We will finish this next week.

3^rd Grade:

This week in math we continued our work of coloring the multiples of 2’s and 3’s on a 100’s chart. I then asked the children to describe the pattern that occurs for the multiples of 2. Most guessed that the pattern they see is straight lines down that are called columns. I then asked them what kind of numbers are they? Many hands shot up. A few were stumped though. The answer is “even numbers”.  We then moved on to the multiples of 3. We went through the same questions. The multiples of 3’s pattern is a slant that goes to the left and they are odd and even. 


The children then took what we discussed and had to write their answers down on a Think Deeply. This is not their favorite thing to do, but it keeps them on their toes.

4^th Grade:

This week we had a little refresher on polyhedrons, because we pretty much just started the unit before break. So to recap, a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges. If you can turn a polygon into a 3-d shape, it is a polyhedral. Anything circular is a non-polyhedron 

 We discussed the faces, vertices, and the edges of a polyhedral. The children then had to take what we discussed and travel to different stations around the room. They needed to answer the questions about the different 3-D shapes on their worksheets. They then met back up with their table groups to discuss the similar patterns among the number of bases, faces, vertices, and edges. We then discussed their answers. Next week we will be
 learning about the cross sections of each shape.

Have a fantastic weekend!