Wednesday, March 21, 2012

yeast experiments!



In continuation of our Pesach story, we discussed that the Jewish people left Mitzrayim(Egypt) in such a hurry they didn't have time to let the dough rise so they made matza. Therefore we eat Matza for 8 days of Pesach. 
We spoke about the difference between challah and matza. Challah is made with yeast to make it rise big but matza is made with only flour and water so it stays thin and flat.


We did two cool experiments to see the result of yeast in dough!
We mixed flour and water and made the dough into a flat matza.




Then we mixed flour water AND YEAST! we shaped it into a circle and let it sit while we did a pesach craft.




We colored 3 matzahs with a brown crayon over a lego board so we should see the "bumps" on the matzas.




  After 10 minutes this is what we saw:

 After 15 minutes the "challah" dough with the yeast had grown even bigger!

After 20 minutes the matza dough was still as flat as always and the challah (yeast ) dough had more than doubled in size! We couldn't believe our eyes!!


EXPERIMENT NUMBER 2:
We filled two bottles with water and sugar. We added yeast to one bottle (the bottle on the right). We put a balloon over each bottle. Watch and see what happened to the balloon on top of the bottle that had yeast!
Wow ! this was a really cool way to see the effects of yeast.






Arts and crafts - 4 cups of kiddush we drink by the pesach seder




Trip to the Matza Bakery today!

Today we went to visit a matza bakery with the other preschool classes.


We watched the process of  making flour from wheat.




 We watched the wheat being rubbed into kernels


Then we blew on the kernels to separate all the unwanted stems.


The we had to grind the flour with a grinding machine and pour it through a sifter to make it into flour.


 Leah was one of the helpers who poured the flour into the mixing bowl.


Tova Leah helped pour the water into the mixing bowl




Rolling the dough









putting holes into the flat dough (to prevent it from rising)




While we waited for our matzas to bake, we watched a play about the story of  Pharoah and the 10 plagues. Mariella was one of the jewish people working hard in Mitzrayim (Egypt).

  Moshe (moses)

 Matzahs "to go"

Thank you to Mariella's dad for accompanying us :)