Tasting Mother Bear's Famous Porridge

After reading many different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I make porridge for my kids to taste.  I use real Scottish porridge and cook it right in my crockpot in the classroom.  As the porridge is cooking and before we taste it, we discuss what porridge might be like.  I tell them that each bear likes their porridge in a different way- Papa Bear likes his with brown sugar, Mama Bear likes hers with honey, Baby Bear likes it extra sweet with both.  Then I ask, “Does Goldilocks like porridge?”  The kids decide that she does (after a bit of discussion-surprisingly) and that she likes it plain because she ate it all up without adding anything to it.  

Then I hand out the worksheet Mother Bear’s Famous Porridge and we make a prediction if we will like it or not. (Check the box).  Then we taste the porridge.  We use our five sense each step of the way.  What does it look like? smell like? feel like? sound like?  taste like?  This kids all laugh about the sound like question.  We all taste it plain at first, then I add a drop of honey to their porridge and they taste it that way.  Next I add a small bit of brown sugar and they taste it, finally I add both honey and brown sugar and they stir it up and taste that.  Some kids ask for seconds and I happily supply it.

After the taste test concludes, I pass out a small square of paper with a bowl on it and the kids color the porridge bowl and write their name on the square.  They add it to the graph under the category of how they preferred the porridge.  I always have a few kids who don’t like it at all so I have one section labeled YUK.  When all of the students have put their preference on the graph, we look at the results and complete the worksheet by adding the totals for each category.

We finish our day by writing about the activity.  I ask them to compare themselves to the characters.  Which way did you like your porridge and which character also liked it that way?  They enjoy writing about tasting the porridge and comparing themselves to the characters in the story.

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