Students make soda bread in lesson in Irish culture ahead of St. Patrick's Day

Students in Alicia O’Shea’s third grade class on Monday will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Irish tea and soda bread they mixed themselves.

With direction from O’Shea and help from parent volunteers, the students created the soda bread from scratch Thursday afternoon.

The lesson, which O’Shea has been teaching for around 15 years, not only stresses the importance of problem solving and following directions but also delves into baking and science.

“In third grade, we study culture all year long,” O’Shea said. “Food is a part of culture. Making and eating food helps us learn how to read instructions, measure things, work together and enjoy a shared experience.”

Working in groups of four, the students executed two recipes: traditional soda bread – which came from O’Shea’s own grandmother – and a variation that swaps in chocolate chips for the raisins. For each, one group mixed wet ingredients and one group mixed dry before the students took turns folding the mixtures into each other.

O’Shea then took the two full pans of bread home to bake and bring back in on Monday for their St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

“The kids always want the chocolate chip, but I feel like I have to push them to try the raisin,” she said. “Usually, more of the raisin ends up in the garbage.”

The students on Monday will also be able to venture into the roughly 6-foot-wide cardboard “Blarney Castle” set up outside O’Shea’s classroom to act out kissing “the Blarney Stone,” which, in this case, is a shamrock-shaped green emerald stone.

“They get the magical gift of the gab,” O’Shea said, referencing the Irish legend for what happens if a visitor to the real Blarney Castle kisses the real stone.

The lesson in baking was not the only way the class is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and historic Irish culture. O’Shea also led a lesson on defensive architecture in which the students not only painted their own castles, labeling the features, but they also used castle blocks in the STEAM lab to create their own architecture.

“Defensive architecture is teaching them about the culture of Ireland 800 years ago,” O’Shea said.