Name: Chloe Hollinden and Becca McDonald

Lesson Title: Exploring properties of Pancakes

Date:
March 1, 2016
Grade Level: Pre-Kindergarten
Circle one:
ECE
PKSN
Standard(s)/Guideline(s): With modeling and support explore the properties of objects and materials.
Pre-assessment of current knowledge: Students have been exploring kitchen chemistry in the classroom. The previous lesson covered how a difference in
temperature can effect the taste of their food.
Instructional Objectives (1-2)
One/Two Assessed Instructional
Objective(s): The student will be
able to...
The student will be able to mix
together the ingredients to make
their pancakes.

Assessment of Student Learning

Identify Evidence: (What will you collect or record as data
to demonstrate students have met your objective(s) and
skill?)
We will create an Excel sheet to identify what the student
already knew about the process of making pancakes and
what they learned after actually making the pancakes.

The students will be able to

verbally explain the difference
between the liquid mixture and the
solid pancake.

One Assessed Developmental

Skill:

The fine motor skills will be

assessed when the students are
using the spoon to mix the
pancake mix and water.

Safety Considerations:
Make sure to keep the students
away from the hot plate.

Program Monitoring: (How will you aggregate or compile

your evidence into a class or group view?)
We will compile the data into a checklist to show as a class
that the students learned about the two properties: solid
and liquid, that are observed when making pancakes.

Learning Experience
Academic Language:
Solid
Liquid
Procedural steps:
1. Begin with the class in their free time stations: Legos,
kitchen, music, computers, art, writing, blocks, etc.
2. Have a small group come over to your table.
3. Explain that today we will be looking at the properties
of pancakes. Ask students what they know about
making pancakes.
4. Have each student mix together the mix and water.
5. Discuss with the students that in order to prepare the
pancakes we have to prepare the batter to put on the
griddle to bake.
6. Ask the students to explain the difference between
this mixture and what they know about pancakes
when it bakes.
7. Cook the pancakes.
8. Discuss with the students that the batter is a liquid
and forms to the container that it is in. Then talk
about how the pancake is a solid and when put in a
bowl it doesnt take the shape of the bowl like the
mixture did.
9. Have the students explain this to you and check with
them as to why they think this happens. What caused
the liquid batter to change into the solid pancake?
Authentic Materials: (Describe authentic real life, hands-on
materials.)
Hot plate or griddle
Spatula
Pancake mix
Spoon
Plates

Bowls
Chocolate chips

Adult Roles:
The adult should engage the students in their exploration of
pancakes. Then the adult will make the pancakes on the hot
plate to avoid injury to the students.

Reflection:
On Tuesday, March 1st, Ms. Hollinden and I presented this hook lesson to our preschool class at Belle Haven Elementary School. Throughout the course of
this school year, Mr. McCoy, our cooperating teacher, has been working with the preschoolers on their knowledge of what he calls kitchen chemistry. In order to
continue the topic for this school year Ms. Hollinden and I focused on teaching the students about liquids, and solids. We assessed the childrens prior knowledge
of the topic by making pancakes with them. As a team Ms. Hollinden and I spent the morning working with the students in small groups, explaining to them how
when you add water to the pancake mix makes it a liquid substance. But, when you add heat to the mixture the liquid then becomes a solid thus forming a
pancake.
As a pre-assessment we asked the students what they thought the water fell under, liquid or a solid. We also asked the students what they thought the
pancake mix fell under, liquid or a solid. The results of the pre-assessment were much like what Ms. Hollinden and I had hypothesized. Due to the amount of time
we have already spent with this class we knew which students may struggle with this topic and which students were clearly going to thrive. Many of the students
that are being assessed for IEPs struggled a bit, only because the time spent on this topic was rushed, due to the lack of time we had. Due to this fact we have
learned that this lesson needs two classes to teach, assess, and provide review if needed.
As a post-assessment, after the children had made their pancakes and were eating them we asked each student, after putting the pancake batter on the
hot plate what happened? What was your end result? Are you eating a liquid pancake, or a solid pancake? For those students that completed the pre-assessment
with flying colors did not have a problem answering our post-assessment questions. Many of the students surprised us though. This is because, for many of the
students that struggled on the pre-assessment, they did not struggle on the post-assessment. Of course, we had a few students that still struggled on the postassessment as they did on the pre-assessment.
If we were to complete this lesson again we would spend more time on explaining what a liquid verses a solid is, as well as giving more examples for the
kids to compare. For the most part though, this hook lesson went off without a hitch. I would definitely recommend doing this lesson with your preschool class.
Especially a class that may not have any prior experience to eating pancakes. It can be such a treat for them.