We waited a few more minutes to allow the curds to fully separate from the whey, then she ladled them into cheesecloth laid over a strainer. Stella chose to use white vinegar instead of lemon juice because we read that it would make a cheese with a more neutral flavor.Īfter three tablespoons, it separated in a most dramatic fashion! We were very impressed. Once it reached 170 degrees we were ready for the next step – adding the acid. The most tedious part was stirring the milk while it came up to temperature. If you’ve got some time on a summer afternoon and don’t mind a few minutes over a boiling pot, this would be a great summer activity with kids. The process was really neat (curds and whey!) and I thought I’d share it with you. We found a great recipe and set to work with a bottle of pasteurized (not ultra pasteurized) whole milk and some white vinegar. She’s decided to write a newspaper called The Daily Curd filled with informative cheese-making articles. But she wondered how you would transform milk into cheese and not butter?Īs part of the project each child has to choose a way to present their research to the class. We’ve made butter before (by shaking a jar full of whole milk with a marble inside). We spent a weekend considering topics – rocketry? the Apollo 13 mission? sheep shearing? Then a random, and real, question she asked ended up being the best topic to explore: what is cheese?

(Kudos to teachers who trust kids to tackle something like this.) Choose a topic, research it, and present what you find to the class. For the final project in 3rd grade Stella’s teacher gave the class an open-ended project.

Macaroni and cheese for kids classroom