The library of Logan Avenue Elementary School was transformed into a bakery on Thursday as third-grade students made their own bread from scratch.
Staff from the Lyon County Extension Office and volunteers helped the students celebrate Kansas Day — Jan. 29 — by making bread. As an added bonus, the students got a lesson on wheat as well.
Rhonda Gordon of the Lyon County Extension Office said the office has taught the bread science lesson to about 400 students in the area. The 90-minute session is packed with lessons and, of course, lots of bread dough. By the end of the lesson, the library was filled with the yeastyt aroma of fresh bread dough and baking loaves from bread machines.
The extension office staff travels to schools in the area each year to teach them about the process of how wheat is grown, harvested, milled and eventually turned into products such as bread.
At the end of the lesson, students had a pan of dough ready to be baked into bread to share with their family at home.
“A lot of them have never made bread before by hand,” said extension agent Amy Jordan. “So it’s a good experience for them.”
Cody Wright said he enjoyed making his bread.
“My favorite thing I learned was how to make bread,” Cody said. “I’ve never tried it before.”
Students began their bread by mixing ingredients in a bag. They mixed water and yeast and other ingredients. After that was mixed, they stopped to let the yeast work and watched a slide show.
Kaelan McDowell enjoyed the slide show.
“Kansas is nicknamed the bread basket of the world,” he said, of what he learned.
Danny Garcia also picked up on some key information.
“Corn is Kansas’ main food,” Danny said as he took a break from kneading his group’s bread dough.
The students also learned that Kansas grows several crops besides wheat and corn including soybeans, milo and sunflowers. Lyon County mainly grows corn, Gordon said.
“Corn is our main product followed by wheat and soybeans,” Gordon told the students.
Gordon walked the students through the entire process of wheat growing.
“The farmers plant wheat in the fall and it grows all winter,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“Yeah!” the students responded.
After the dough had rested for 10 minutes, the students went back to working on it.
They expressed surprise when they realized there were bubbles in the dough caused by the yeast.
Students added more dry ingredients and kneaded the dough until it was ready to be divided.
The dough was cut into four sections and each student was given a section to continue kneading.
The students chanted “palm, fold, turn” as they kneaded.
Gordon commented on the dough’s thickness.
“Our yeast is still rising,” she said. “So that tells us we are going to have a nice tall loaf and not a cracker.”
The dough was put into baking tins and teachers baked it for them so students could take it home. Along with the bread, the students took home a bookmark from the Kansas Wheat Commission, a package of yeast and a recipe for the bread.