Chocolate!!

For class, McKenzie has to pick something she is interested in and do a report on it to present to her class. They did this a month or so ago. She did elephants.

Mrs. Galbraith told them, "If you did an animal last time, do something different. If you made a poster last time, present something different for your visual."

McKenzie was a little bummed because her and Emily already had their animals picked out! So, we talked about it. I gave her lots of suggestions on what she could do. Of course she didn't like any of them! :)

Then she picked one. CHOCOLATE!! Now why didn't I think of that! :)

She looked online for some chocolate information. We found a couple of books on chocolate. Then I got a brainstorm! We need a field trip! We must see how chocolate is made. Sample some very yummy chocolate.

So.....we went here:

This is the machine that mixes the dark chocolate. (the milk chocolate machine is next to it). On the left side you can see some chocolate in molds. The shelf they are sitting on vibrates. It shakes all the bubbles out. Then they put it in the fridge to set. Sometimes they fill them. They have TONS of different molds! We saw animals, shoes, golf clubs, flowers, cars, martini glasses, a little cottage, and soooooo many more! All made of CHOCOLATE!!!

This is how they get their chocolate! This is Belgium chocolate. It comes in huge bricks! (You can also buy them!)

These are the beans pods from the trees. They split them in half and take out the beans. The beans inside are covered in cocoa butter. They scrape off the cocoa butter and toast the beans outside in the sun. I didn't know the pods were so big!

This was the best part of the field trip! SAMPLES!!! We also had to buy some :) For research!

I am glad McKenzie picked Chocolate for her research project. I learned a lot! I just have to make sure I let her do it! :) I had so much fun, it would be very easy for me to take over her project! :)

Have a great day! Go eat some chocolate! :)