A Touch of Chocolate

Invitation: Have you ever wondered about where and how chocolate is made?
Are there good and bad reasons for eating chocolate? Students will be engaged in a
variety of activities which will allow them to explore information about the production
and uses of chocolate, as they are engaged in an interdisciplinary study of chocolate.

Situation: Activities will take place in the classroom and at home.   At school the
students will be working in class doing research.   At home the students will be organizing some of the research and completing activities assigned for this project.

Interactions: The students will work in groups of three or four to a group.
Each student will have a job assignment. i.e.: Researcher, Reporter, Production
Manager, Monitor.   Individual groups will share their activities with the rest of the class.

Tasks: Students will work in groups to gather information from a variety of sources, including the Internet. Assignments will be projects and activities dealing with the topic of chocolate.   Students will read and collect information about where chocolate comes from, how it goes from a cocoa bean to factories, to chocolate candy and other products.   Projects and activities will involve primary concepts and/or individual facts.   The students will create class books, explore a variety of literature and genre,
select information for oral and written presentation, create maps and timelines, create
Math problems , analyze and classify information.

Standards:TEKS- English Language Arts, Reading(110.5) 3.1 Reading Fluency 3.6A, 3.6B, 3.6D, 3.7A, 3.7B, 3.7C. Listening/Speaking/Audience-3.3C
Mathematics-3.15 , Science (112.5) 3.A , Social Studies 3.4

Assessment: Students will be expected to complete at least three of five
projects successfully by groups.   Individually each student will have completed one
project.   The projects that will be mandatory will be a report, a book or poem, a poster
that's informative with illustrations.   Students will create a slide show using the internet and Hyper studio.

Tools: In order to accomplish the goals for this unit, the students will use a variety of resources including the computer, the internet, variety of literature such as books, magazines.

The Activities:

Topic Hotlist

Activity