Type: Whole class/small group exercise

Title: Cooking up a Distraction

Learning Objectives: The student will:

• Write about their mood and mindset before and during an activity
• Follow directions on a recipe to make a dessert
• Compare and reflect on differences in their mood from the two times noted, and infer why they may be different

Description:

In this activity, students will work together to follow a recipe to make a dessert, and reflect on how the experience affected their mindset.

Materials:

• Copies of Thunder Cake and What Will the Weather Be?
• Paper and pencil for each student
• Ingredients and tools/dishes for dessert making. Dessert will depend on resources and time available. The recipe for Patricia Polacco's grandmother's thunder cake is in the back of the book, but you may also choose a different recipe, or even a no-bake recipe. The important part is that students will need to pay attention to measuring and following step-by-step directions for this activity.

Preparation:

• Before explaining any of the activity to the students, have them respond to the following questions on a piece of paper. Ideally, this would be before (or a day or more after) reading Thunder Cake.
• Describe in one or a few words your mood. (may be happy, worried, sad, calm, mad, etc.)
• What are the top three things on your mind right now? Rank them from #1 through #3.

Have students put their names on the papers, and collect them.

• Students will read Thunder Cake and What Will the Weather Be?; librarian/educator may wish to read these together as a class
• Librarian/educator will gather ingredients and tools for making the recipe

Direct Instruction

1. Thunder Cake is about how author Patricia Polacco's grandmother (she calls her Babushka) helped her overcome her fear of thunderstorms as a child. Today we're going to make our own version of a thunder cake, just for fun.
2. Librarian/educator will share the recipe for the activity.

Guided Practice

1. Librarian/educator will review ingredients, tools, and safety precautions for the kitchen.
2. Librarian/educator will also review any tricky or difficult parts of the recipe.
3. Librarian/educator will divide students into working groups of 3-4.

Independent Practice

1. Students will begin working in their groups to prepare the recipe. Librarian/educator will assist as needed, but a big part of this is having students be focused on what they are doing.
2. When groups are at a good stopping point, interrupt them and have them write the answers to the same questions above that they answered during the preparation stage. It may seem a little unusual to the students to be interrupted, but it is for a good reason!
3. Once students have completed answering the questions and turned them in, they may resume and complete making the recipe.

Sharing/Reflection/Closing

1. When recipes are complete, students may enjoy their desserts!
2. While they are eating, the librarian/educator will hand out their responses to the questions from before the activity, as well as during.
3. Students will be asked to compare their answers from the two times they were asked. The librarian/educator will facilitate a discussion. Suggested questions are:
• Compare your mood from before the activity, and then during the food preparation. Is anything different? What? Why do you think this is?
• Ask for volunteers to share some of the top things on their minds before, and then during the food preparation.
• Ask for a show of hands regarding whether the cake/recipe was at #1, #2, or #3 for the second (during food preparation) response.
• If there is a relatively high amount of these, ask students why they think that is.
• Why do students think Babushka had her granddaughter assist with making a thunder cake when the storm was coming and she was clearly frightened?
• Did this strategy work?
• What are some ways that this same strategy could be used in our everyday lives?
4. Wrap up any additional questions/thoughts by students.

Notes about this strategy:

This unique activity connects students to the literary text with an experiential approach, and may be a good way to help them experience the same coping strategy employed by Babushka to help her granddaughter in Thunder Cake.