My very first blog post, almost a year ago, was about making bread in the classroom. I was so nervous hitting the publish button, I thought “who’s going to care about making bread in a Montessori classroom?” You know what, there were plenty of people who cared, and I discovered that I enjoyed sharing my ideas and love of Montessori, and hitting that publish button!
In the late fall our school always uses the For Small Hands (from Montessori Services) as a fundraiser for materials. It is always a great resource for parents to pick up a few stocking stuffers and support the school at the same time.
I pined for this grain mill for years. It is a beautiful, sturdy, real piece of machinery. It is practical and purposeful. It is deeply satisfying work. I knew it would be the perfect addition to our already established bread making and butter spreading works. It was the one item that I requested we purchased with the money we earned from the fundraiser, and I am so glad that we did.
We do have to mount and dismount it everyday. It has to be attached to a heavy, sturdy table or countertop, and all of our smaller tables scoot and move when you are trying to grind the wheat. This leaves us with one large table for the grain mill and bread making — we do just call the table “the bread table.” Thankfully the clamp is simple to tighten and so far has stayed put all morning.
We use approximately 4.5 cups of flour during the week in our bread baking recipe. We are still experimenting with how we want to grind our grain – should we do it all on Monday before we bake the bread? Or should we grind about a cup each morning for the daily bread. Right now, since it is such a popular work, we are grinding about 2 to 3 cups on both Monday and Tuesday. Once we have a surplus, we will figure out our permanent grain grinding plan.
Grinding Wheat berries
Materials
- Grain Grinder
- Container of wheat berries
- Small bowl that fits under grain grinder
- Small measuring cup (we use 1/4 cup)
- Large container to collect ground flour
Process
- Take scoop of wheat berries with the measuring cup and add them to the grain grinder
- Turn the grain grinder to grind the flour
- Watch the flour come out. Stop when the hopper is empty
- Empty bowl into large flour container
Note
- I really emphasized that it will damage the grinder if we turn the crank with an empty hopper.
- As the children turn the crank, the adjustment knob can be accidentally changed and the ground grain will be more coarse. I tried to run the flour though the mill again to make it finer, but that didn’t really work. Using the coarse grain isn’t a problem at all, it just gives the bread a hearty bite! We do check during the morning that the knob is not too loose or too tight.
- We are adjusting our bread recipe (which is in this post) because of the change in the flour, with the whole wheat flour, it seems to need a little more flour. All we have to do is liberally flour the kneading surface with commercial flour, and it seems to do the trick.
Spreading Butter on Bread
Materials
- Sliced bread
- Small containers of butter (we use Land o’Lakes spreadable butter with olive oil)
- Small plates
- Spreader knives
- Reserved sign
- Tray for all the materials
Process
* We keep our food prep process essentially the same from food to food. The basic steps are the same as the post cheese cutting. This allows the child to already be comfortable and confident with the process *
- Place reserved sign on tray and go wash hands
- Return sign to container. Gather one plate, one dish of butter, one knife and a piece of bread.
- Take tray to the table
- Spread butter on the bread
- Eat!
- Take plate, butter dish, and knife to the dish washing station and wash
- Return the tray to the shelf so it is ready for the next person
As always, we try to incorporate quality books based on the subject we are talking about. Here are some of my favorite bread books
Bread, Bread, Bread (Around the World Series)
Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat
Want to be the first to know what’s happening at montessori works? Subscribe below and have new posts delivered by email.
[mc4wp_form]
* this post contains affiliate link to Montessori Services and Amazon. I will only ever link to books and products that I know, use, and recommend. Thank you for your support *
