Cranberry Sauce

Although this is a seasonal dish, I had never made cranberry sauce in my life before. And, neither had my students. For most of them, they had not seen or tasted a cranberry before. We made this sauce from a recipe from the LINC 4 Activities: http://www.moresettlement.org/LINC1-4/LINC4/LINC_4_Classroom_Activities.pdf page 477 Cranberries, A North American Superfruit. 

To sample the sauce, I brought in some halal cheese (no rennet or pepsin) and some crackers. 

As we went through all the steps in the recipe, we described everything using the five senses. This included sampling a raw cranberry and a teaspoon full of pure maple syrup. Yum, yum! This builds concrete experience with the foods that many Canadians take for granted. It was also quite lovely to have this time out of the regular classroom and just to chat while each step was being completed. I will certainly try to do some more recipes in my class in the future. 

Outcomes: reads and understands short instructions, read and understand formatted texts, measure ingredients accurately, give simple descriptions of simple objects

Guess the image

A special thanks to my creative colleague, B.B.,  for sharing this idea with us. She found it at http://www.greatgroupgames.com/zoom-in-game-thanksgiving.htm! She set up several of these sequential photos based on thematic words. Great for including horticulturally related items such as foods. All the food item vocabulary can be pre-taught with realia in class, and followed up by making some delicious recipes or sampling some apple cider.

Clove and Orange Pomander

Ever since grade 3 I have been making orange and clove pomanders for Christmas. My school teacher introduced this activity in class in 1985 and for some reason it really stuck with me. Perhaps it was the hands-on-ness, or the wonderful smell. I have made these in my ESL classes a few times, and each time was a success.

This year, my centre held an end of the year celebration (as there are diverse religious groups at the centre). I chose to lead this activity with the adult students and presented it as a natural air freshener for the kitchen or bathroom. I googled the history (e.g. on Wikipedia here), but decided not to go into too much detail during this celebration activity. I also showed some design ideas as mentioned below. This activity was done close to the end of the day and students were wanting to leave early, but when I showed them the task, they were quite interested. All the levels of students (e.g. from Literacy to LINC Level 5) sat together and worked on their own pomanders while chatting with each other and showing off their creations. The room smelled incredible and we were relaxed and just making stuff! Amazing!

A tip I have learned over the years is to start with pushing in 4 cloves at the top of the orange and another 4 at the bottom of the orange. This creates sturdy 'posts' to wrap the ribbon or yarn through. The ribbon will not slid around and off the orange. With the ribbon secured, I then develop the pattern I want with the remaining cloves. There are many image ideas on the web if you do an image search for orange and clove pomanders.

Outcomes: Listen to and follow instructions, ask for help, help peers, conceptualize and create a pattern