Dear Teacher, Welcome to our latest ChopChop curriculum, designed as a tool to teach cooking as an interdisciplinary subject. Using ChopChop in the classroom inspires children to cook and eat real food, and also supports learning in math, English, science, and social studies and can even be used as part of a Spanish language lesson! You may find that there are different learning levels within the curriculum. Feel free to adapt this curriculum to fit the needs of your classroom. To create the best learning experience for your students, be sure to: Read the Teacher s Guide provided in order to prepare for each lesson. Read and discuss the information provided with students in advance in order to prepare them for class. Uphold high sanitation and safety standards within the classroom. Keep it Clean! Practice hand washing before and during class using warm water and soap. Remind students to keep their hands away from their mouth and face. Tie back long hair and remove nail polish before cooking, and wear closed-toed shoes while cooking. Keep food, cooktops, and kitchen gear clean and stored properly. Establish a set of classroom rules when cooking. For example: 1. Be careful with the equipment and be conscious of your surroundings. 2. You are going to try some new things and you may love them but maybe you won t: NO ewwww s. 3. Always wash your hands before you begin cooking. 4. Wear closed-toed shoes. 5. Every day we will sit down to eat together. Please wait until everyone has finished cooking and has sat down before you start eating. 6. Everyone will clean up his or her own mess. In order to keep our curriculum available as a free resource, please consider purchasing a subscription or classroom package, or making a donation. We appreciate and value your expertise and welcome any feedback regarding the curriculum. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us at teach@chopchopmag.org. Happy cooking! The ChopChop Team
Teacher Guide Cooking & Math: Math is one of the most important and most frequently used skills in cooking. Math helps kids measure, convert recipes, change servings sizes, and solve real world problems. In this lesson, students will learn how to convert a table into a bar graph. Student Worksheet Tables and Graphs Cooking & English (ELA): Being able to read recipes and understand vocabulary is important when cooking. Since reading and writing go hand in hand, practicing the art of narrative writing can help students reinforce these skills. In this lesson, students will write a short story based on a photograph. Student Worksheet Writing About a Photograph Kitchen Science: Cooking is all about science: how ingredients interact, the microscopic parts of food that make it what it is, the science of how ingredients are made, and more! In this lesson, students will experiment with three flavors: salty, sour, and sweet. Student Worksheet Taste-Test Experiment: Salty, Sour, and Sweet Cooking & History/Social Studies: Cooking is a great way to discuss history and culture. In this lesson, students will learn about the origin of chili powder while identifying locations on a world map where chiles are used. Student Worksheets Spice Origin: Chili Powder Cooking & Spanish Cooking is international and recipes come from all over the world. In this lesson, students will translate Spanish words into English by identifying the color of the ingredient in the photo. Student Worksheet Los Colores (Colors)
Pico de Gallo Fruit Salad This is a classic Mexican dish that might sound strange: Spears of fruit with chili powder? And salt? All we can say, as we ve said so many times before, is try it and see! Pico de gallo (pronounced PEE-ko day GUY-o) can refer to various Mexican salads, but it can also refer to a particular salsa made from chopped tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. Obviously, this isn t that! ADULT: YES HANDS-ON TIME: 20 MINUTES TOTAL TIME: 20 MINUTES MAKES: 4 SERVINGS KITCHEN GEAR Measuring cup Measuring spoons Cutting board Sharp knife (adult needed) Peeler Platter or cups for serving INSTRUCTIONS 1. Arrange the fruit (and vegetables) on the platter or in cups and sprinkle with lime juice, then the chili powder and salt. Serve right away. Did you know? Jicama is a root vegetable with a light brown peel and white, very crisp flesh. It s traditionally included in this dish because it s a little bit sweet and very crunchy, and tastes so good with the lime, chili, and salt. Photo: Carl Tremblay INGREDIENTS 4 cups (or so) spears of peeled fruit (and vegetable), including any or all of these: watermelon, mango, cucumber, jicama, papaya, and pineapple (Note: a spear is a long, narrow piece of fruit. You will likely need an adult to help you peel and cut the fruit.) Juice of 1 lime 1 teaspoon pure chili powder (see note below) or ½ teaspoon cayenne ¼ teaspoon kosher salt Did you know? Many commercially packaged chili powder blends are actually a mix of spices including chiles (often called chili peppers ), cumin, oregano, and sometimes even sugar, but pure chili powder is just that: the ground pods of dried or smoked chili peppers. It is available from Hispanic and, increasingly, larger supermarkets and natural food stores. You should try to find it for this recipe, if you can. If you can t, and you have cayenne, use that instead.
Tables & Graphs Donna and Brendan sell their pico de gallo at the park to hungry kids and families. They wanted to track how many customers buy their pico de gallo, so Donna and Brendan created a table that showed how many customers they had in the morning, midday, and afternoon. Customers Buying Pico de Gallo Time of Day Number of Customers Morning 4 Midday 11 Afternoon 7 Using the information from the table, fill in the blank bar graph to represent the number of customers who bought their pico de gallo fruit salad throughout the day. 12 Time of Day Customers Bought Pico de Gallo Number Of Customers 10 8 6 4 2 0 Morning Midday Afternoon Time of Day Math & Money Bonus Question: Donna and Brendan sold their pico de gallo for $2.00 each. If each customer bought only 1 fruit salad, how much money did they make throughout the entire day? Cooking & Math 1/1
Writing About a Photograph Writing a story based on a photograph is an important skill, as it tests your observational skills and imagination. Using the photograph above, write an imagined short story about the image. Make sure to include descriptive details and an appropriate timeline. For example: What are their names? Where are they? What are they doing? Why are they in this space? Cooking & English 1/1
Taste Test Experiment: Salty, Sour, and Sweet The flavors of salty, sour, and sweet interact in cool and sometimes unpredictable ways. For example, have you ever baked cookies? If you have, you might know that adding salt heightens the sweet flavor without it, the cookies taste a little flat. Sometimes a pinch of sugar will make a tart wedge of grapefruit taste more sour instead of sweet, while a pinch of salt will enhance its sweetness. The science behind these unexpected interactions is interesting. We have glucose (another name for sugar) receptors in our mouth that are located within sweet-tasting cells that sense when we taste something sweet. When we eat something sweet that has sodium, or salt, in it, the receptor carries the glucose (sugar) into the sweet-tasting cell. Basically, the salt helps us recognize sweet tastes more efficiently. But don t take our word for it! Try it and see. (Our Pico de Gallo Fruit Salad recipe has a built-in taste test!) What You Need Tart fruit such as fresh pineapple chunks, grapefruit wedges, or green apple slices (if you have more than one kind of fruit, that s even better) Sugar Salt Fresh lemon juice How You Do It 1. Start by tasting a piece of fruit by itself. Notice how sweet it tastes to you, and also how sour. If you like, make a little chart (or use the chart below) for each kind of fruit, with columns for sweet, sour, and salty. Give the plain fruit a number from 1 5, with 1 being the least (sweet, sour, or salty) and 5 the most. 2. Sprinkle the fruit with a tiny pinch of salt and taste it. Is it more or less sweet or sour or salty now? Give new numbers if anything changes. 3. Sprinkle a piece of fruit with sugar and taste it. How would you rank the flavors now? 4. Do the same thing with lemon juice. 5. If you like, try different combinations of salt, sugar, and lemon, and see what you discover. 6. If you have a different kind of fruit to test, start the process again from the beginning. Plain Taste Observations Fruit Sweet (1-5) Sour (1-5) Salty (1-5) With Salt With Sugar With Lemon Conclusions Was anything surprising, or did the fruit always taste the way you thought it would? Does the taste test change the way you would think about seasoning food? If you noticed anything unusual, see if you can do a little research to understand your results. Kitchen Science 1/1
Spice Origin: Chili Powder Chili peppers, which are used to make chili powder, were first grown in South and Central America and have been a part of their diets since around 7500 BC. The process of making chili powder is simple: typically, red chili peppers are dried and then ground into a fine powder. About 500 years ago, Portuguese and Spanish explorers likely were introduced to the chili pepper and brought it back to Europe. Many people think this is when European and Arab traders started using traditional trading routes to help spread chili peppers around the world. Chili peppers are grown in many countries throughout the world. There are over 25 species that range from very hot, like a habanero chili pepper, to very sweet, like a bell pepper. The jalapeño chili falls in the middle of the hot spectrum. Chili powder is used not only in Central and South American cooking, but also in Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean recipes. Using the map below, can you identify the following regions, continents, and countries that commonly use chili powder. Cooking & History/ Social Studies 1/1
Los Colores (Colors) The Pico de Gallo Fruit Salad is a very colorful recipe. How well do you know your colors in Spanish? Color Chart Using the table below, identify the color by using the Spanish vocabulary and photo of the ingredient. Ingredients watermelon mango cucumber pineapple salt Color en Español (Spanish) rojo naranja verde amarillo blanco Color en Inglés (English) Did you know? The words Pico de Gallo translates to beak of rooster. Cooking & Spanish 1/1
ANSWER KEY Tables & Graphs Donna and Brendan sell their pico de gallo at the park to hungry kids and families. They wanted to track how many customers buy their pico de gallo, so Donna and Brendan created a table that showed how many customers they had in the morning, midday, and afternoon. Customers Buying Pico de Gallo Time of Day Number of Customers Morning 4 Midday 11 Afternoon 7 Using the information from the table, fill in the blank bar graph to represent the number of customers who bought their pico de gallo fruit salad throughout the day. 12 Time of Day Customers Bought Pico de Gallo Number Of Customers 10 8 6 4 2 0 Morning Midday Afternoon Time of Day Math & Money Bonus Question: Donna and Brendan sold their pico de gallo for $2.00 each. If each customer bought only 1 fruit salad, how much money did they make throughout the entire day? $44.00 Cooking & Math 1/1
ANSWER KEY Spice Origin: Chili Powder Chili peppers, which are used to make chili powder, were first grown in South and Central America and have been a part of their diets since around 7500 BC. The process of making chili powder is simple: typically, red chili peppers are dried and then ground into a fine powder. About 500 years ago, Portuguese and Spanish explorers likely were introduced to the chili pepper and brought it back to Europe. Many people think this is when European and Arab traders started using traditional trading routes to help spread chili peppers around the world. Chili peppers are grown in many countries throughout the world. There are over 25 species that range from very hot, like a habanero chili pepper, to very sweet, like a bell pepper. The jalapeño chili falls in the middle of the hot spectrum. Chili powder is used not only in Central and South American cooking, but also in Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean recipes. Using the map below, can you identify the following regions, continents, and countries that commonly use chili powder. China Korea Central America South America Indonesia Cooking & History/ Social Studies 1/1
ANSWER KEY Los Colores (Colors) The Pico de Gallo Fruit Salad is a very colorful recipe. How well do you know your colors in Spanish? Color Chart Using the table below, identify the color by using the Spanish vocabulary and photo of the ingredient. Ingredients watermelon mango cucumber pineapple salt Color en Español (Spanish) rojo naranja verde amarillo blanco Color en Inglés (English) red orange green yellow white Did you know? The words Pico de Gallo translates to beak of rooster. Cooking & Spanish 1/1