What do you get when you combine the science of heating and cooling chocolate, geographical inquiry into the cocoa industry and Dahl’s imaginative tale of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with a strong Business and Economicsflavour? Well, in Year 5, this was a recipe for an engaging and delicious “Build a Business” theme!
Learning about these different aspects culminated in students enthusiastically creating their own chocolate businesses. Students planned, manufactured and planned the marketing of their final products as they partnered with the school community to raise funds for the Masa School established by the Ati People in the Philippines. The result was an authentic and fun learning experience, which demonstrated service learning in action:
“I enjoyed making the chocolate a lot!! I also never knew that creating a business would be such fun! It was also fun to package our chocolate and all our efforts reminded us that we were doing all of this for the Philippines. We also taste-tested our products, which was also fun! I learned how to work as part of a team and not to just do things for yourself but to use what you are blessed to have, to do things for others too.” – Ciara Mather
“Erin and I have loved this whole year as did the rest of the year group, but we agreed that the biggest highlight of 2017 was definitely Term 3 when we made and sold our delicious chocolates. We were all lucky enough to be in a group of our choice. After we got in our groups, it was time to decide on what our posters and packaging were going to look like, and how we wanted our chocolates to taste. We hadn’t realised just how just much slavery there really was in the industry of chocolate, we also learned all about the meaning of sustainability and budgeting along with the interesting history of money. We know that every single person in Year 5 felt privileged and thankful to be given an opportunity to be a part in this epic and awesome learning experience. We are still very thankful that our teachers gave us the freedom and trust that they did, but they were still there to look over our shoulder and give us their opinion when we needed it.”- Erin McElwee and JannekeBaard
“Term 3 has been the greatest school term so far because we have learned all about chocolate! We completed some Stile lessons online on where chocolate comes from, the dark side of chocolate including child labour, and fair trade and sustainability. After that, we got into groups of three. We started to plan out what we were going to put in our chocolate to make it unique to others. We made posters to advertise our products and in Week 7 we made our chocolate in the home economics which was a fantastic experience. In Week 8, we started to package our chocolates. They will be sold on the Philippines Day. We also learned about consumer rights and the process of what the bank does and about the advantages and disadvantages of using cash, credit cards and EFTPOS. In Language lessons, we read and completed some questions on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, covering the topic of figurative language. Term three was amazing!” – Isaac Siah and Denan Pavlinovich
“The chocolate experience was really fun. I learned how to melt and make chocolate. I can’t wait to sell the chocolate items to raise money for the Philippines.”- Rebecca Moulds. (5B)
“The chocolate making was a lot of fun and the fact that we are selling it to raise money for the Philippines is really nice. My favourite part was when we melted the chocolate as it made me feel like dipping my finger in and eating it. For me, this was cooking made fun.” -MithremMaster (5C)
“What I enjoyed about making chocolate was designing the packaging and making the chocolate in the high school. What I will never forget about this lesson is the first time I tasted my chocolate, the rich chocolatey flavour running down my throat it was like magic!”- Erin Mc Elwee (5A)
“The chocolate making experience was awesome, because we got to be extremely creative. I honestly love cooking, so this was really fun. Most of all, we also got a ‘tiny’ taste test.” – Alexander Wagner (5B)
“Term 3 has been very fun learning all about chocolate. I have learned a lot about chocolate and how it’s made, for me this term has been very interesting learning about sustainability and fair trade. This has inspired me to try making chocolate myself or find other uses for cocoa beans.” -DenanPavlinovich (5C)
“My chocolate experience was really exciting and fun at the same time. This is because we got to design our own chocolate bake it, wrap it and sell it on Philippines day.” – Isabella Postma (5C)
“I loved making our own chocolate with our friends in our own group together. The teamwork was also really good, when we were packaging we cut a block in thirds and we tried our chocolate with the cloud. It was sooooo yummy!” – Joseph Cassidy (5A)