Yum! Mmmm! Que Rico! Craft Lesson

For this craft lesson, I think this would be a great way to incorporate geography and history for "Where does this come from?" The book already gives great examples of foods and where they originated and what they are used for, but students could choose a food that interests them (either out of the book, or one that they come up with on their own) and research where it comes from, as well as its journey through time. For example, where would you find a cocoa bean to make chocolate? Who came up with the idea behind chocolate? When did chocolate practically become a staple in the United States? I think this would be interesting for students because they would be able to pick a topic they already want to learn about, as well as learn a lot of unknown facts about their favorite foods. Actually, two of my other classes had been talking about using geography as "where does this come from?" such as our clothes, cars and tools, and then using this as a map to figure out the way other countries live, and I think this would be a really fun and creative way to get kids interested in different cultures.

For the activity, once students have done their research, the class could make their own book of foods. Students would write the information that they learned in a paper format, and then draw their own pictures. Students could incorporate each other's findings into a huge class book that they could share. That way the students would have something to take home and keep when they wanted to learn new facts about other food that the rest of the class researched.