Then and Now #5 - Early Farmers

grinding with a mortar

grinding with an electric grinder

To learn more about the development after early humans, Water group watched a video called "Birth of Civilization" produced by National Geographic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKuwTKEXNwY). We were only able to watch the first 12 minutes of the show and the children were completely mesmerized by the ways of life of the nomadic people. We briefly talked about how and why people learned to tame wild animals and grow food (mainly wheat and barley). The children saw in the video that the people used stone bowls and sticks to grind their wheat into flour to make bread.

Instead of grinding wheat into flour, the children ground rice. They noticed that it wasn't easy and it took a long time and many turns!  I showed the children an electric grinder and they each took turn grinding the rice. Their first reaction was "Wow!" I asked them, "Why do you think someone invented the electric grinder?" Alfie said, "It's much faster." Theo answered, "You just press it." Molly said, "You can get more each time."

making rice pudding

In the end, we used our ground rice to make rice pudding (from a recipe in the olden days). The children loved it!