The Legend of Chocolate

The third grade class just completed a unit on the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish. Their Spanish teacher, Cynthia, worked with West, their third grade teacher, to create a unit that would complement what the students were learning in their main classroom.

Students studied about how things work – machines, phones, etc. – in their main classroom lessons and in Spanish class, students learned about where chocolate came from.

At the end of the unit, third graders got a chance to see how chocolate is made, and how the machines work to make all that chocolate.

In their Spanish unit, students learned many new vocabulary words such as food (comida), drink (bebida), the Toltecs (los Toltecas), as well as many more vocabulary words.

They learned abut Quetzalcoatl, the god of Light and Tezcatlipoca, the god of darkness. Quetzalcoatl was the god to bring the food of the gods – chocolate – to the people, especially when they were so hungry. He taught them to farm, and how to turn cacao into a chocolate drink fit for the gods!

Third graders at the French Broad Chocolate Tasting Room

Third graders at the French Broad Chocolate Tasting Room

From there, they learned the mythical story about where chocolate originated. They learned the story in Spanish and even learned to recite it.

At the end of the unit, they took a field trip to the French Broad Chocolate Factory and had a tour of the Tasting Room. They listened to Evan, a Chocolatier, talk about cacao, where it comes from, how the Chocolatiers turn the cacao beans into chocolate and how they try to be as sustainable as possible in the process.

The crew at the French Broad Chocolate Factory led everyone into their “back rooms” where students could see all the machines at work. From rinsing, to sifting the cacao beans, to grinding them down into chocolate, they were able to see the entire process from start to finish.

Students sampled chocolate – the dark, unsweet kind directly derived from cacao – from different regions and it has a different taste from different regions!

Learning about chocolate and cacao

Learning about chocolate and cacao

At the end of the presentation, the third graders performed the skit of the Legend of Chocolate in Spanish for the French Broad Chocolate Lounge Staff.

Did you know that the French Broad Chocolate Factory uses solar power to heat all its water? And that they make every attempt to source all their ingredients locally?

They also deal only with farms that use fair trade in their practices. In fact, the owners and employees make trips to cacao farms in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Peru and help harvest the cacao by hand.

They have developed mutually beneficial relationships with farmers in those countries.

third grade

Watching the grinding machine take off the outer shell of cacao.

Rainbow would like to extend a special thank you to the Chocolatiers – especially Evan – for a wonderful lesson on chocolate, sustainability, how things work, and the idea of being as responsible to the planet and to each other as possible!