Herdsmen of the Great Hungarian Plain
Students in Grade 3 begin the year with a unit on maps. In Hungarian Culture we look at the map of Hungary and notice that a major part of the country is flat. It is called the Great Hungarian Plain. As large areas of the plain are not arable, they were largely inhabited by herds of sheep, cattle, horses, and swine from March to October. We learn about the job of the herdsmen who took care of them, and watch a film from the Ethnographic Museum's film archive about how the herdsmen worked and lived on the prairie for 6 months. We learn where Gulyás Soup gets its name, how sheep cheese is made, and what pigs like to eat the most.
Here are some pictures that will help your children tell you all about what they've learned!
Here are some pictures that will help your children tell you all about what they've learned!
As part of this unit we learned about the different foods made of sheep milk and cow milk. One of our AISB families has a dairy farm, and they brought in some raw milk for us to experiment with. We added vinegar to some of the milk and it curdled, which is how the process of making cheese begins.
We saw how the fat rises to the surface of milk when left to stand, which is the cream. If left to turn sour the cream becomes sour cream. We shook milk in a jar until the fat coagulated and turned into butter. Here are some pictures and films about how we made butter.