Free Chocolate Unit Study

Note- it is recommended that you read through the entire unit before starting it so that you have an idea of what topics you will be covering and what supplies you will need for various activities. One of the cooking activities in this unit involved purchasing a kit that contains real cacao beans for your child to look at. The cost of the kit is $10.

Recommended Books:

Language Arts Activities
Chapter Books (if you desire, choose one for a read-aloud to go along with your unit) *please preview
The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling

                Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
                Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith

Social Studies Activities
                History/Timeline Project--
                 Smart About Chocolate: A Sweet History by Sandra Markle
                 The Story of Chocolate by David P. Butts

Science Activities

                Rainforest Lesson--
                How Monkeys Make Chocolate by Adrian Forsythe
                Nature’s Green Umbrella by Gail Gibbons

A Walk in the Rainforest by Kristin Joy Pratt

Rainforest Colors by Susan Canizares
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynee Cherry

                Chocolate Process Lesson--
                Cocoa Ice by Diana Karter Appelbaum
                Beans to Chocolate by Inez Snyder (younger students)
                Made in the USA - Chocolate by Samuel G. Woods (older students)

Math Activities
All these books are optional; none of the math lessons are dependent on them, but they sure are fun books!
Hershey Kisses Subtraction Book by Jerry Pallotta

Hersheys Milk Chocolate Weights and Measurements by Jerry Pallotta

Hersheys Milk Chocolate Multiplication Book by Jerry Palotta

Hershey's Fractions by Jerry Pallotta

The M&M's Brand Counting Book by Barbara Barbieri

The Hershey Kisses Addition Book by Jerry Pallotta

Library List
Additional Books:

Mercedes and The Chocolate Pilot by Margot Theis Raven
The Story of Chocolate by C.K. Polin (DK reader)
I Like Chocolate by Robin Pickering (easy reader)

The Kids Book of Chocolate by Richard Ammon
The Chocolate Sundae Mystery (The Boxcar Children) by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Chocolate (What's for Lunch?) by Claire Llewellyn
Chocolatina by Erik Kraft
Oh, Ducky! by David Slonim
Chocolate Island (Usborne Young Puzzle Adventures) by Karen Dolby

The Chocolate Train by Joanne Kornfeld
The Chocolate Lovers: A Children's Story and Cookbook by Joan Van Loon

Chocolate by Hershey: A Story About Milton S. Hershey by Betty Burford

Video Resources:

Milton Hershey: The Chocolate King (biography) directed by Bill Harris

The Cadbury Family: The Sweet Smell of Sucess

I Love Lucy Volume II- "Job Switching"

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Language Arts Activities

Sensory Details
(note: you need Hershey Kisses to complete this lesson)

Good writers include sensory details in their stories. These are words and phrases that appeal to the senses of the reader. Review the five senses with your student-- sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. As you complete this exercise, encourage your student to think outside the box. Try to stay away from the easy words (such as sweet, pretty, good, etc.). Try to make actual comparisons (looks like a little silver bell, sounds like a one tap on a drum, etc.)

Give your student a few Hershey Kisses. Ask her to describe it-- What does it look like? What does it sound like when you drop it on the table? What does the foil wrapper feel like? Have her open the kiss. What does it smell like? What does it feel like now? What does it look like? And finally, (after your student has thought of descriptive words/phrases for sight, sound, touch, and smell)-- What does it taste like?

You may want to use this Prepared Chart (Sensory Details- Chocolate Kiss) to help with the lesson.

Word Fun
How many words can you make from the words Chocolate Candy Bar? Prepared Worksheet

Chapter Book Read-Alouds (*Please preview all books!)
In searching the internet for chocolate information, I happened upon lesson plans for all three of these chapter books. You will find vocabulary words and comprehension questions for each chapter PLUS additional activities (intended for classroom use but could be modified for your homeschool use).

The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling

Chocolate Touch Comprehension Questions, Vocabulary, and Additional Activities

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Comprehension Questions, Vocabulary, and Additional Activities

Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith
Chocolate Fever Comprehension Questions, Vocabulary, and Additional Activities

Social Studies Activities

Geography: Seven Continents+Mapping Where Cacao Grows

Review the seven continents as you show your students the areas on your world map where the Cacao trees grow. Here is a map for you to reference.

If you wish, have your child make a storydisk (draw a picture of a candy bar on a small round disk of paper and then tape onto one of the areas that Cacao is produced (or you could let him make multiple disks and place one on each chocolate producing area). You could also have your student make his own world chocolate map. Using this map print-out, let your student label the seven continents then choose a way to designate the cacao producers of the world (color with a brown crayon, add chocolate stickers, make multiple disks as mentioned above, etc.).

The History of Chocolate (and Timeline)

Learn about the history of chocolate! A great resource for learning about the History of Chocolate is the book The Story of Chocolate by David P. Butts. Read through this wonderful book with your student. After your finish reading, make a timeline with your student. (If you can't locate The Story of Chocolate, try Smart About Chocolate: A Sweet History by Sandra Markle)

Use as many (or as few) of these Timeline Events to explain the history of chocolate to your student. Then, encourage your student to make his own chocolate timeline including the most important events. Your student may even want to draw a small illustration to represent each milestone. This project may take more than one day, so you may want to schedule it for two days (or this may be a project your student continues to work on for the rest of your study).

Math Activities

We have prepared some fun pages for your student to complete using chocolate; this is the yummiest math you'll ever do!

Fractions
Chocolate Bar Fractions (no Hershey Bar needed to complete these, but you will need crayons)
Large Version (full page)
Small Version

Fractions with a Hershey Bar (Hershey Bar needed)

Measurement: One Pound
A Pound of Chocolate (Hershey Bar needed)

Graphing
Give your student a packet of M&Ms-- peanut or regular). Using the Prepared M&M Graph, let your student chart the amount of each color M&M.

If this is too simple for your older student, teach her how to find the range, mean, median, and mode after she completes the graph. First, have her write out the numbers (separated by commas) from smallest to largest.
Range= start with the highest number and subtract the lowest number
Median= the number in the middle
Mode= the number that appears the most times
Mean= the average (add all the numbers up and divide by the number of different colors)

If your child (or one of your children) is very young, they may simply enjoy sorting the M&Ms by color and counting the total of each color with you.

Addition
Simple M&M Addition Minit Book to make for your Lapbook
Simple M&M Addition Worksheet for your PK-K student

More Math Fun
You may want to include some of the Hershey math activities on this day (the books have already been mentioned at the beginning of the unit). They have a variety of math topics to choose from; you can easily pick a book that meets what your student is currently learning in his or her math program (or maybe a topic for review).

Story Problem
This is a fun story problem for you and your student (you may want to work it out on the calculator together).

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50.
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1756; If you haven't, add 1755
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born

You should have a three digit number
The first digit of this was your original number (how many times you would like to have chocolate each week)
The next two numbers equal your age!

Art Activities

Design Your Own Chocolate Bar
Use this sheet we've prepared to Design Your Own Chocolate Bar!

After you decide your secret recipe, name your concoction, and draw your label, you may want to add in some extra math lessons with this. On the sheet your student is asked to decide how much he will sell each bar for. Once he decides, you can invent a few story problems. If he is going to sell each bar for $1, and it costs him .50 to produce a bar, how much profit does he make on each bar? How much profit would he make if he sold 100 bars? 150 bars? 200 bars?

Make some Chocolate Clay

Science Activities

Nutrition (information summarized from http://www.cocoapro.com/nutrition.html)
Is chocolate good for you? What's in that candy bar you ate after you did your math lesson?

Chocolate bars are a combination of sugars, protein, and fat as well as anti-oxidants and minerals.

Sugars
    Sugars are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates serve as fuel for the body-- the main energy source; carbs are also essential to help your brain
    function. Starchy foods such as cereal, rice, and potatoes are also carbohydrates. Sugars and starches both provide the same amount of
    energy. The main sugar in milk and dark chocolates is sucrose. Milk chocolate also contains lactose, another form of sugar.   Your older
    student may want to do some research about carbohydrates. Why are starches more nutritious than sugars? What happens when we
    depend on sugar for our energy? Also, what form of sugars are the best? (fructose, sucrose, etc.)

Protein
    Protein is composed of amino acids that promote the growth and repair of body tissue such as skin, muscle and hair. Protein is most often
    found in meat and animal products such as milk and eggs, but can also be found in plant foods like nuts and beans. A small amount of protein
    can also be found in cocoa. A chocolate bar usually has between two and three grams of protein.

Fat
    Chocolate bars include cocoa butter which is a fat. Fats are essential to life and provide a useful source of energy while insulating the body
    and its organs against the cold. They also build and maintain body tissue while assisting in the transport of fat-soluble vitamins throughout the
    body.

Antioxidants (Flavonoids)
    Scientists have discovered that cocoa contains compounds called flavonoids. These are found in plant-based foods and may have certain
    health benefits. Flavonoids also have antioxidant properties that help the body's cells resist damage by free radicals, which are formed when
    the body's cells utilize oxygen for energy (they are also formed in other ways). High amounts of flavonoids may also positively affect the
    maintenance of a healthy heart.

Essential Minerals
    Chocolate also contains a variety of minerals that are essential to good nutrition. These include calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, iron, zinc
    and copper. Each of these minerals plays important roles in a variety of biological functions, including growth, bone formation, metabolism
    and oxygen transport within the blood.

Cocoa itself is very good for you! However, a chocolate bar is mixed with other ingredients and provides more sugar and fat than one probably needs in a regular snack. Teach your student to enjoy chocolate in moderation. (You may want to get some dark chocolate bars and compare nutrition facts as well as taste-test. You can buy different percentages of dark cocoa; maybe you could buy a few and sample. How high can you go? How much dark chocolate do you like in your candy bar before it becomes too bitter?)

Prepared Nutrition Sheet (to be used with a Hershey Bar)

The Cacao Tree

Ask your student to imagine what a plant that grows chocolate looks like.

    Would the plant be a flower? Look like a tree? A bush?
    Would it grow under the ground (like a potato or a carrot)?
    Which part of the plant would the chocolate come from?
    What does the chocolate look like as it grows on the plant?
    Would they be able to grow this plant in their backyard?

After your discussion, let your student draw what he thinks the plant looks like. Then show your student a picture of a Cacao Tree. Compare his drawing to the real plant.

Pictures to show your student from a Cacao plantation

Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is a small (4–8 m tall) evergreen tree native to tropical Mexico, but now cultivated throughout the tropics. Its seeds are used to make cocoa and chocolate.

The bush grows naturally in tropical regions such as in the low foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. It requires a humid climate with regular rainfall and good soil. It is an understory tree, growing best with some overhead shade.

Cacao Flowers
The flowers are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches; they are small, 1–2 cm diameter and pink. The fruit, called a cacao pod, is ovoid, 15–30 cm long and 8–10 cm wide, ripening yellow to orange, and weighs about 500 g when ripe. The pod contains 20 to 60 seeds, usually called "beans", embedded in a white pulp. Each seed contains a significant amount of fat (40–50% as cocoa butter). Their most important active constituent is theobromine, a compound similar to caffeine.

Activity: Cacao Tree Connections

Write these words about the Cacao onto index cards (one word per card):

sun

bird

leaf litter

flower

fungi

cacao tree

midge

monkey

cacao pod

sweet

pulp

canopy trees

Give your student the cards. Help your student place the cards in a line so that each card somehow relates to the next card. Your student should discuss the connections with you. With your younger student, use the cards as a teaching tool to teach the connections. Can he put them back in order?

Here is an example for the order of cards.

The sun------- cacao seed: the sun will provide energy for the seed to sprout and grow

The cacao seed -------canopy tree: the seed needs the shade in order to sprout

The canopy trees -------monkey: monkeys live in the canopy trees

The monkey --------cacao pod: monkeys eat the pulp in the pods

The cacao pod -------flower: pods grow from pollinated flowers

The flower --------midge: flowers are pollinated by the midge

The midge---------- leaflitter: leaflitter provides ideal living conditions for the midge to live and breed

Leaf litter------- canopy trees: the leaf litter provides nutrients for the canopy trees

The canopy trees------ bird: birds inhabit the branches of the trees

Cacao Tree Word Find (Easy)

The Process of Chocolate Making

Read Cocoa Ice with your student. When you finish, make a list (from the book) of how cacao beans are grown, harvested, etc. in order to turn them into (hot) chocolate.

1. Plant a cacao tree in the shade
2. It grows pink flowers
3. Papa splits the pods open with his machete
4. We spread slippery beans and sticky sweet pulp on a carpet of banana leaves
5. They sit in the sun for a few hot days and begin to change color
6. We pick beans out of the smelly pulp
7. We spread the beans in the sun until they turn dark brown
8. We turn the beans every day until they are dry
9. Mama roasts them over a hot fire
10. She puts them in a mortar and they are crushed
11. We add water and sugar and cook it in a pot

Read Beans to Chocolate by Inez Snyder with your student. After you read, use these Prepared Sequencing Cards to help your student review the chocolate making process. Have her try to put them in order.

With your older student, you may prefer to read Made in the USA - Chocolate by Samuel G. Woods. After reading, tell your student he is going to create sequence cards of how chocolate is made. Let your student go back through the text and take notes deciding which points are the most important; then, let him make his cards writing a few sentences of text to go along with a hand-drawn illustration (or you could allow him to look for clip-art).

Biomes: Rainforest

Read some of these books about the Rainforest, the home of the cacao tree:

How Monkeys Make Chocolate by Adrian Forsythe

The Great Kapok Tree by Lynee Cherry

Nature’s Green Umbrella by Gail Gibbons

A Walk in the Rainforest by Kristin Joy Pratt

Rainforest Colors by Susan Canizares

As you read the books together, write down new or fascinating words/places/topics/animals, etc. you encounter (i.e. vines, Brazil, Ghana, bitter, leaf litter, toucan, monkeys, tropics, pods, plantation, etc.). Print each word on an index card (one per card). Discuss the terms after you read and let your student illustrate each card. After you are finished, ask your student to think of categories to group the cards in (you may want to just give your younger students the categories). Some categories may include: animals, rainforest plants, words related to growing chocolate (cacao tree, seed, pod, etc.), places where chocolate grows, etc. Let them paste the words and matching pictures to a poster board, booklet, or construction paper with the title written above. You could even use the cards to make a minit book for your Lapbook. Your older student may want to choose a few card topics to do further research.

Rainforest Information at Enchanted Learning

Rainforest Crafts

Rainforest Crafts -- provides lots of on-line rainforest craft ideas

Rainforest Vine Craft at Enchanted Learning

Oriental Trading Company Rainforest Crafts (craft kits to order)

On-line Field Trip!

Let's go on an on-line field trip and tour A Chocolate Factory in Hershey, PA to see how chocolate is manufactured! You may want to read the book Chocolate by Hershey: A story about Milton S. Hershey by Betty Burford before or after your field trip.

Tour Other Chocolate Factories online:

http://www.scharffenberger.com/VTOUR1.asp

http://www.cadbury.com.au/sites/cadbury/index.php?pageId=29

Cooking

Making Chocolate

*Note- you will need to order a Make your own Chocolate Kit for this activity.

You can order the kit from Love to Learn

Time for some real fun! It's time to make your own chocolate. Open your kit and dig in. This kit contains all the ingredients you need to create your own chocolate treat! AND it contains some real cacao beans, which taste surprisingly different from what you would expect! You can hold the beans, taste the beans, and break open the beans to see just where chocolate comes from! *Completion of this kit takes around 30 minutes.

Hazelnut-Chocolate Soup
4 cups half & half
6 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Nutella (chocolate-hazelnut spread)
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts (toasted)

In a saucepan, combine first four ingredients. Place over medium-low heat and stir frequently until the chocolate melts. Beat egg yolks in a small bowl, then whisk in about 1/2 cup of the chocolate mixture. Whisk the egg mixture into the soup and simmer, stirring frequently, until the soup thickens, about five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the liqueur. To serve-- ladle into warm bowls, add a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of hazelnuts. Serve immediately. for the liqueurs.

Fudge
2 1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 stick butter
1 can (3/4 cup) evaporated milk
1 jar (7.5 oz.) marshmallow fluff
3/4 tsp. vanilla
12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Grease a 9 inch baking pan and set aside. In a large saucepan combine first five ingredients. Stir over low heat until ingredients are blended. Heat to a full rolling boil. Boil slowly, stirring constantly for five minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and chocolate chips. Add nuts. Pour into prepared pan. Cool, cut, and enjoy!

Cook Up Your Own Candy Bar

Chocolate Recipes

More Chocolate Fun!

Links

The Sweet Lure of Chocolate

Chocolate Interactive Mystery

Amazing Chocolate Sculptures

Read about Milton Hershey

Chocolate: Facts, Fiction, History

Fascinating Cacao Facts

1. The seed pods of the cacao tree grow not on the end of its branches, but directly off the branches and the trunk.

2 Each pod is about the size of a pineapple and holds thirty to fifty seeds–enough to make about seven milk chocolate or two dark chocolate bars.

3 Cacao flowers are pollinated by midges, tiny flies that live in the rotting leaves and other debris that fall to the forest floor at the base of the tree. Those midges have the fastest wing beats in the world: 1,000 times per second!

4 Cacao seeds are not sweet. They contain the chemicals caffeine and theobromine, which give them a bitter taste.

5 Africa is now the source of more than half the world’s cacao, while Mexico today provides only 1.5 percent.

FUN FACTS:

Chocolate is America's favorite flavor. A recent survey revealed that 52 percent of U.S. adults said they like chocolate best. The second favorite flavor was a tie (at 12 percent each) between berry flavors and vanilla.

U.S. chocolate manufacturers currently use 40 percent of the almonds produced in the United States and 25 percent of domestic peanuts.

U.S. chocolate manufacturers use about 3.5 million pounds of whole milk every day to make chocolate.

Sixty-five percent of American chocolate eaters prefer milk chocolate.

The melting point of cocoa butter is just below the human body temperature (98.6 degrees) — which is why it literally melts in your mouth.

Older children are significantly more likely to prefer chocolate than younger children (59 percent of 9-11year-olds prefer chocolate vs. 46 percent of 6-8 year-olds), according to an NCA survey.

*Here are some record-winning chocolates, according to the Guinness Book of World Records:

The largest chocolate bar ever manufactured weighed 5,026 lbs. and was exhibited by Elah-Dufour United Food Companies at Eurochocolate in Turin, Italy in March 2000.

The largest box of chocolates ever made was a Frango mint chocolates box weighing 3,226 lbs. created by Marshall Field's, Chicago, Illinois, USA on November 14, 2002. The box contained 90,090 individual chocolates.

On April 4, 1996, the Rotary Club of Piet Retief, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, made a chocolate and marshmallow Easter egg which was just over 25-ft high. The egg weighed 8,968 lbs. and was supported by an internal steel frame.

The Northwest Fudge Factory in Ontario, Canada, created a slab of fudge that weighed 2,002 lbs, making it the record-holding largest slab of fudge. The chocolate-and-vanilla-swirl fudge measured 166 ft. long, 9 in. wide and 3 in. high. The fudge took a total of 86 hours to prepare and 13 individuals to pour it into shape.